Two senior US officials visited Israel on Wednesday trying to revive peace efforts as Israeli forces carried out a major attack on the Palestinian Gaza Strip, officials said.
David Welch, the US assistant secretary of state for near east affairs, met with Israeli leaders on Wednesday as part of a whirlwind tour that will also take him to Jordan other unidentified countries, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The director of US national intelligence, John Negroponte, also arrived in Israel on Wednesday for talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and intelligence service chiefs, Israeli government sources source said.
Welch was following up on a visit to the region last month by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed at reviving peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, McCormack said.
The US diplomat will notably be working to strengthen the position of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, who is locked in a power struggle with the Islamic group Hamas, he said.
The peace process has been moribund since Hamas, which Israel and the West consider a terrorist organisation, won control of the Palestinian government following elections in January.
Negroponte meanwhile was due to meet with the heads of Israel's foreign and domestic intelligence services, the Mossad and Shin Beth, the Israeli source said.
The source denied reports that Negroponte was arriving with new information on a possible deal concerning the release of Israeli serviceman Gilad Shalit, captured by Palestinian militants near Gaza on June 25.
The presence of Welch and Negroponte in Israel coincided with a major Israeli military incursion into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday which left eight Palestinians and an Israeli soldier dead.
Abbas and Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya, who heads an Hamas-led government boycotted by the West, both condemned the Israeli attacks as a "massacre".
An army spokesman said the raids into several areas of the Gaza Strip were to counter the launch of rockets into Israel by Palestinian militants and build pressure on those holding Shalit, the captured Israeli soldier.
Asked about the Israeli operation, McCormack shifted the blame for the violence onto Palestinian radicals.
"Israel has a right to defend itself," he said. "The Palestinians have an obligation to stop terror attacks and do what they can to dismantle those terrorist networks."
"We would just ask that the responsible parties on both sides would keep in mind that there is a hope, a political horizon here, and you're going to resolve differences that exist via the negotiating table," he said.