Occupied Jerusalem: Israel said on Sunday it would continue air and ground assaults in the Gaza Strip indefinitely.
The prime minister rebuffed a proposed truce and kept pressure on fighters to free an abducted soldier and halt cross-border rocket attacks.
"This is a war that cannot be on a timetable," a senior government official quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as telling his cabinet, a day after Palestinian Prime Minister Esmail Haniya of Hamas raised the prospect of a ceasefire.
"There is no intention to reoccupy Gaza in order to stay there, but if certain operations are needed they will be carried out. We will operate, enter and pull out as needed," the official quoted Olmert as saying.
Israeli forces launched their offensive, the first such push into Gaza since troops and colonists withdrew from the territory last year, after Palestinian gunmen abducted Corporal Gilad Shalit in a raid into Israel on June 25.
Olmert, the official said, also rejected calls by the three Palestinian factions that grabbed the tank gunner, including the governing Hamas group's armed wing, to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for information about him.
Such a move, Olmert was quoted as saying, would only strengthen Hamas at the expense of 'moderate elements' in the Palestinian National Authority.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat urged international aid organisations to help avert the 'human catastrophe' in Gaza.
Israeli forces have destroyed a main power station there and killed about 50 people, including 20 civilians, residents said.
The offensive has been criticised by the European Union and United Nations, but those organisations wield far less influence on Israel than its main ally, the United States, which has led an international aid boycott of the Hamas-led government.
"Let's remember who started this," US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN. "It was the outrageous action of Hamas in violating Israel's sovereignty, in taking the soldier hostage."
In the latest violence, an Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a car carrying two fighters near the southern Gaza town of Rafah, killing a bystander and wounding one of the gunmen as well as four civilians, Palestinian security officials said.
At least three fighters were wounded in an Israeli air strike near the Karni border post between Gaza and Israel, Palestinian medics and police said.
Israel also bombed a key bridge in northern Gaza, despite an appeal from the United Nations to stop targeting the strip's already badly damaged infrastructure.
