TEL AVIV, April 14: Israel on Friday stepped up threats to send ground troops back into the Gaza Strip despite its pullout from the territory last year, if Palestinian militant rocket attacks continue.

Small Israeli forces have twice entered the territory in less than 24 hours for the first time since September’s pullout, and two senior army officers said in newspaper interviews that 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.

“I do not rule out ground operations if requested by the southern command of Israel. If the time comes, we will launch them,” Gen 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 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 were deemed to be militants.—AFP