Thursday, July 6 2006 11:48 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Gaza: Israeli military strikes killed two militants and one police officer early Thursday in the northern Gaza Strip, even as Tel Aviv warned that the'rules of the game' have changed after a Palestinian rocket attack in its coastal city of Ashkelon.

Two militants of Hamas's armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, were killed in separate air strikes as the groups were trying to launch homemade rockets at southern Israel, security sources said Thursday. Medics at Kamal Odwan Hospital said that the body of militant Osama Hejazi was brought to the hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources said that an Israeli naval gunship fired one artillery shell at a Palestinian police post close to a northern beach in the Gaza Strip, killing one and wounding at least 10 others.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet authorised the Israeli army to further expand a military offensive after a Palestinian missile hit a field next to a residential neighbourhood in southern Ashkelon and another an industrial zone still further south.

The army began preparations Wednesday night to send large numbers of ground troops and tanks into northern Gaza, to join smaller forces already operating in the area since Monday, Israel Army Radio reported. The reinforcements are to take up positions in the sandy dunes north of Gaza City from where the rockets are launched. The large-scale offensive was launched last week with the primary goal of pressuring the captors of 19-year-old corporal Gilad Shalit into releasing him. But the latest events have raised fears of a further escalation of violence. Palestinian security sources said some Israeli tanks and troops had already begun moving into the region Wednesday night. In Washington, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israel to exercise restraint, but also called on Syria to use its connections with the governing Palestinian Hamas movement - whose armed wing is keeping the soldier along with two other groups - to get the soldier released. "There are many countries that believe that Syria has a lot of leverage that it could use to get the release of this Israeli soldier, that they really ought to do it, and they ought to do it now," Rice said. In Brussels, European Union External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner urged both Israel and the Palestinians to 'step back from the brink'. She said the spiralling violence 'greatly complicated' efforts to launch an international aid fund for the Palestinians, which would bypass the Hamas-led government, and warned of a worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza. In Geneva, the new United Nations Human Rights Council devoted its first emergency session to the situation in Gaza, but postponed a vote on a controversial resolution drafted by Muslim states and condemning human rights violations caused by the recent Israeli military operations against Palestinian civilians. Israel, the US and some non-governmental organisations criticized the draft resolution as being one-sided. Despite the Israeli military activity, Palestinians in northern Gaza fired four more Gaza-produced Qassam rockets into Israel Wednesday evening. One hit a field next to a residential neighbourhood in southern Ashkelon and another an industrial zone still further south. No injuries were reported, but five residents were treated for shock. Israeli media, quoting foreign diplomats involved in the mediation with Shalit's captors, reported that the hostage-takers have relaxed conditions for his release and are demanding Israel accept a timetable for a future release of prisoners. The militants had initially demanded the immediate release of more than 1,400 Palestinian militants jailed in Israel in return for corporal Gilad Shalit's freedom.