Israel on Friday stepped up threats to send ground troops back into the Gaza Strip despite its historic pullout from the territory last year, should Palestinian militant rocket attacks continue.
In interviews with Israeli newspapers published one day after a small force entered the territory for the first time since September's pullout, two senior army officers said ground operations could be launched in the future.
However both Deputy Chief of Staff Moshe Kaplinski and Major General Yitzhak Harel said they had no illusions that such incursions would stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets into the Jewish state.
In the past week, 18 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes and tank shelling designed to halt repeated salvoes of makeshift missiles fired by hardline factions such as Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
The violence has been the worst since the new Palestinian government led by Hamas, which has refused to renounce violence or recognise Israel, was sworn in last month.
"I do not rule out ground operations if requested by the southern command of Israel. If the time comes, we will launch them," Kaplinski was quoted as saying by the top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
He admitted, however, that frequent incursions into autonomous Palestinian areas in Gaza before Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers last summer, failed to stop rocket attacks.
He did not deny that the army had extended a unilaterally imposed interdiction zone in the northern Gaza Strip, expanding the area subjected to repeated bombardment to barely 100 metres (yards) from the nearest homes.
Aid organisations and human rights groups, Israeli as well as Palestinian, have accused the military of bombarding civilian targets in the Gaza Strip.
Two of the 18 Palestinians killed since last Friday were young children. Fifteen of them were deemed to be militants.
Kaplinski said Israeli military pressure on the Palestinians was "beginning to bear fruit" but said "more should be done to stop rocket attacks".
In an interview published in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, Harel said Israel could be on the verge of a large-scale ground operation in Gaza unless the rocket attacks cease.
"We will continue escalating our actions... and it is possible that eventually we will launch a ground operation in Gaza," he was quoted as saying.
"We may even be on the verge of a large-scale ground operation in Gaza Strip and the West Bank," he said, albeit recognising that rocket attacks continued when Israeli troops occupied the territory in the past.
Since Israel left Gaza, its military activities have been limited to air strikes, naval bombardment and cross-border artillery firing.
The army again pounded the territory Friday after two rockets were fired into Israel the previous day causing no damage or casualties, a spokesman said.
The newspaper interviews came after Israeli troops entered the Gaza Strip Thursday for the first time since last summer's pullout.
An Israeli military source said a small force entered a short distance through the Kissufim border gates in a "pinpointed" operation to search for explosives left by two militants who were killed late Wednesday.
The two Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades militants had apparently been trying to infiltrate Israel and carry out an attack over the Jewish Passover holiday.
A UN Security Council statement that would have urged Israel to refrain from "excessive use of force" against the Palestinians was blocked by the United States late Thursday, on the grounds that the text was "not fair and balanced".
Under negotiation for the past three days by the 15-member council, the text had sought to respond to Israel's recent intensive bombardment of Gaza.
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