Israeli warplanes launched twin air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight in response to rocket and mortar fire from the Hamas-controlled territory, an army spokesman said on Monday.

The strikes targeted "centres of terrorist activities, which have been hit", said the spokesman, referring to projectiles fired from Gaza over the weekend.

Israel considers the Islamist Hamas movement as the only organisation responsible for the firing of the missiles "even if it does not claim responsibility," said the spokesman.

In December 2008, Israel launched its devastating "Operation Cast Lead" into the Gaza Strip in response to rocket and mortar fire.

The 22-day war, which ended in a ceasefire on January 18, 2009, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.

In its wake the number of Palestinian attacks dropped significantly, although 230 rockets and mortar rounds were fired at Israel during 2010, according to army figures.

Right wingers in the Israeli government called on Sunday for tough military action against Gaza militants after a violent weekend on Israel's border with the Palestinian coastal enclave.

"The government must consider afresh a policy of zero tolerance, exert a heavy price, not let this situation deteriorate," National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau told journalists at the weekly cabinet meeting.

"It needs to stop," added Landau, a veteran hawk from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.

The military said two rockets had slammed into southern Israel on Sunday, one shortly after midnight and a second later in the morning, bringing the number of rockets and mortar rounds fired across the border this year to 20.

On Saturday, three people on an Israeli kibbutz were wounded, two of them seriously, by mortar fire from the Gaza Strip, for which the militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

That followed a border firefight between militants and Israeli troops on Friday in which an Israeli soldier was killed by so-called friendly fire.

Israel has so far responded to nearly every instance of projectile fire with air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

earlier related report

US sets talks with Israeli, Palestinian negotiators
Washington (AFP) Jan 10, 2011 –

Israeli and Palestinian envoys are expected to hold separate talks in Washington this week with US officials including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part Washington's bid to revive peace negotiations, the State Department said Monday.

Spokesman Philip Crowley said Israeli envoy Yitzhak Molcho and Palestinian Saeb Erakat "will come to Washington to meet separately with US officials as part of our ongoing consultations with the parties at the working level to achieve a framework agreement on all core issues."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is currently on visiting the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar, may participate in these discussions, he said.

Crowley added that the two envoys will not meet with each other but that US Middle East envoy George Mitchell is also likely to speak to each of them.

Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed after Washington admitted it had failed to secure Israel's agreement to a new freeze on settlement building, the Palestinian condition for continuing to negotiate.

Direct talks began on September 2, but stalled three weeks later with the end of an Israeli moratorium on settlement building. The Palestinians refused to talk while Israel continued building.

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