Mubarak warns Netanyahu against new Gaza war

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday warned Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu against launching a new war on Gaza, as they met in a bid to break the impasse in Middle East peace negotiations.

During talks at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, Mubarak cautioned the visiting prime minister after Israeli troops traded fire with gunmen in the Palestinian enclave.

Mubarak told Netanyahu of the "danger of the latest Israeli threats and their repercussions on the stability and security of the region and the cause of Middle East peace," Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.

"Mubarak affirmed Egypt's rejection of any new offensive on Gaza," said the report.

Israel's military said a projectile, probably a mortar shell, was fired from the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip hours before Netanyahu flew to Sharm al-Sheikh for the meeting, according to AFP.

The rocket attack came after Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian men the military said were trying to breach the border late Wednesday night.

Israeli Trade and Industry Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer, National Security Chief Uzi Arad and Military Secretary Yohanan Locker accompanied Natanyahu in his visit to Egypt.

Earlier that day, armed Palestinians fired seven rockets into Israel without causing any damage, the army said.

"Respond with all our force"

Tensions have been rising along the heavily guarded border of the blockaded enclave over continued rocket fire into the Jewish state and retaliatory and often deadly Israeli air raids.

Hamas has mostly respected a truce with Israel that ended a devastating 22-day war two years ago, but smaller Islamist fighting groups have fired dozens of rockets since the beginning of December.

Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said last month that Israel would be forced to "respond and respond with all our force" if the militants kept firing rockets into the Jewish state.

The armed Islamist Jihad group has said it is prepared for war, and Hamas threatened Israel last month with an unspecified secret weapon it said it possessed.

Mubarak also warned Netanyahu of the repercussions of the fighting on already deadlocked peace talks with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who has been based in the West Bank after Hamas routed his forces from Gaza in 2007.

Direct talks between Netanyahu and Abbas stalled in September last year over the construction of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for a future state.

Mubarak "affirmed that it was necessary for Israel to revisit its stances and policies, and to take tangible steps to build trust" with the Palestinians, MENA reported.

After the meeting, a message on Netanyahu's Twitter account said he expressed "his appreciation for the Egyptian role in working to push forward the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians."

One of the stumbling blocks to any peace deal is the rift between Abbas and Hamas, which rejects talks with Israel.

International efforts are now focused on ways to try and bring the two parties back to some form of indirect negotiations.

Israel imposed a semi-blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized it, and Egypt has failed to mediate a unity government between the Palestinian factions.