JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel on Tuesday maintained a ban on journalists entering the Gaza Strip to cover its war on Hamas despite a Supreme Court ruling that foreign reporters should be let in.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) made a strong protest over the ban but the head of the Israeli government's press office claimed foreign media were ""spoiled"" and Israel would not risk the lives of its soldiers to protect them.
Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government on Friday to allow foreign reporters into the Gaza Strip and eight names were chosen for the first group to go in.
But no journalist has been allowed into Gaza where thousands of Israeli troops are fighting Hamas. More than 580 Palestinians, including nearly 100 children, have been killed since the Jewish state's offensive began on December 27.
International media cover the war through Palestinian reporters based in Gaza.
""The unprecedented denial of access to Gaza for the world's media amounts to a severe violation of press freedom and puts the state of Israel in the company of a handful of regimes around the world which regularly keep journalists from doing their jobs,"" said an FPA statement.