"It's very easy to recommend such an operation, but the world is not built solely by resorting to force... There are other factors that should be taken into account in our action," Halutz was quoted as saying by army radio.
"We should keep a cool head, because we want to preserve our moral and ethical values when we make war," he was also quoted as saying.
Israel's influential security cabinet is due to meet on Wednesday to thrash over ways to halt continued Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
On Monday, the Israeli military identified eight rocket launches from the Gaza Strip but could confirm only two impacts inside Israeli territory.
More than 300 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since Israel launched operations against the territory in late June in a bid to recover a soldier seized by militants and halt rocket attacks.
Halutz also said he had ordered an internal army inquiry into the military's use of cluster bombs during this summer's 34-day war with Hizbullah in Lebanon.
"We need to determine if we obeyed all the rules. The question is not to know if we used such bombs, but if we did so in keeping with conventional rules," he was quoted as saying.
Thousands of the bombs, which contain dozens of smaller explosive devices that spread over a wide area, were dropped on south Lebanon during the war.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006