BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS (AP) -- Israeli leaders authorized the army on Monday to intensify ground operations against Palestinians in Gaza who have been pounding border towns with deadly rocket fire. Military officials said, however, that a major thrust into the densely populated coastal strip is not in the works.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appealed to militant groups to take the first step in forging a fresh truce with Israel, saying the alternative would be the collapse of the Palestinian coalition government between the Islamic militant group Hamas and Abbas' moderate Fatah faction.

Hamas says it is responsible for the recent wave of rocket attacks, in which two Israeli civilians have been killed. The attacks have prompted 12 days of intensive Israeli airstrikes that have killed about 50 Palestinians, most of them militants.

Under the new Israeli directive, larger numbers of troops will be able to enter Gaza on pinpoint missions, but no widespread campaign is imminent, military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss policy.

Past large-scale offensives have failed to quell rocket fire.

The green light to send more troops into Gaza was given by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. The orders came a day after rockets claimed their second victim inside a week in the southern town of Sderot, a frequent target and Peretz's home town.

Eight more rockets struck southern Israel on Monday, slightly injuring one person. One fell as Peretz, the leader of the Labor Party, voted there in party primaries. "If there is an answer to terror, it is that the state of Israel is living and breathing, and in Sderot there are elections," Peretz said. "Despite everything, Sderot residents will prove that Hamas does not frighten them and will come to vote at the polling booths."

The outcome of the party race could erode the stability of Olmert's coalition government with Labor and determine the embattled prime minister's future. Preliminary results showed Peretz losing. The two front-runners have said they would work to topple Olmert.

Palestinian have said there could be no truce as long as Israel keeps up its attacks and refuses to extend any Gaza cease-fire to the West Bank, site of frequent Israeli swoops on militants.

But in an interview with Associated Press Television News Abbas said it was the Palestinians who should take the first step. "The truce project means all acts by all parties stop, the Palestinians first and the Israelis, so we can move after to the West Bank," Abbas said. "Israel ... can do what it wants, whenever it wants but we say we should do our duties and put the ball in the Israeli court."

A Hamas official said a delegation from the organization's Syria-based political bureau head to Cairo on Tuesday to discuss a possible new truce with Israel as well as a halt to Palestinian infighting.

Israel's air campaign coincided with a lull after more than a week of deadly fighting between Hamas and Fatah.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, meanwhile, urged both Israelis and Palestinians to end the latest wave of violence.

"Palestinian infighting only benefits the Israeli side and supports its pretext that there is no negotiation partner," a foreign ministry statement quoted Aboul Gheit as saying.

Israel's airstrikes have bruised Hamas, knocking out key bases, killing several military commanders and forcing the movement's leadership underground. Israel has so far avoided attacks on the group's political leadership.

Missiles have hit near the homes of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and one of the group's lawmakers, Khalil al-Haya. But the army has said they were not targets.

Haniyeh has kept out of sight since an attack Thursday on the Shati refugee camp where he lives and did not show up to chair Monday's Cabinet session.

"Ismail Haniyeh did not attend the meeting for security reasons," Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said.