Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday the government would react with restraint to continuing Qassam attacks, saying Israel was hoping to give the cease-fire a chance to develop into further steps toward a peace process.

"We will fully explore every possibility that can lead to momentum to begin a diplomatic process, and so we are now giving the truce a chance," he told the Knesset parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, according to participants in the meeting.

Olmert, who has said he was running out of patience with the ongoing rocket attacks, did not tell the parliamentary committee what level of violence would prompt an Israeli reaction.

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On Sunday, the cabinet forbade the IDF to open fire on Qassam rocket launchers in Gaza, even though rockets continue to be fired at Israel from the Strip in violation of the cease-fire. Sunday, one rocket landed in the western Negev, though no one was hurt.

Prior to the new IDF decision, brigade commanders could decide on arrests in the West Bank on their own, unless the operation was considered particularly complex.

Curbs on IDF arrests in West Bank
Under the new regulations, even though a cease-fire agreement in the West Bank has yet to be reached, the IDF will no longer arrest Palestinians in the West Bank without explicit approval senior officers.

The new IDF decision transfers the authority to authorize arrests to either GOC Central Command Yair Naveh or West Bank commanders with the rank of brigadier general.

The decision is aimed at reducing tensions in the West Bank that could disrupt the fragile cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

"The orders to the troops are to prevent unnecessary friction, as much as possible," explained an army source. "But when there is information about a cell that is planning to commit an attack, there is no doubt: A force will be sent to make an arrest. If we don't do this, the results will be felt immediately in the form of attacks in the center of the country."

Prior to the new IDF decision, brigade commanders could decide on arrests in the West Bank on their own, unless the operation was considered particularly complex.

However, the IDF opposes expanding the cease-fire to the West Bank, saying that terrorist organizations have no intention of stopping attempts to launch attacks from there, and without the army actively thwarting these attempts, suicide bombings inside Israel are liable to resume.

During cabinet discussions on the matter, Defense Minister appear Peretz was among those who sided with the IDF and opposed expanding the cease-fire to the West Bank and changing the rules of engagement in Gaza, cabinet sources said.

The sources also said that new cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman did not voice any opposition to either issue.

Cabinet changes Gaza rules of engagement
The new rules of engagement were not well received by field officers on the Gaza border, who worried that terrorist organizations will exploit the opportunity to carry out attacks, and that the IDF will be prohibited from trying to prevent them. However, a senior officer stressed, "our professional opinion is irrelevant once an order [from the cabinet] has been received."

In adopting the new, more stringent rules of engagement in Gaza, the cabinet sided with Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni against Peretz, who advocated the army's view that preventive strikes on Qassam launchers should be permitted. Peretz argued that the government should not be gambling with Israeli lives in order to preserve a cease-fire that is still being only partially observed.

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, a former Shin Bet security service chief, was the only cabinet member who backed Peretz on this issue.

In the West Bank Sunday, IDF troops killed a 15-year-old Palestinian in the Askar refugee camp in Nablus. The soldiers said that they opened fire because a group of boys that was throwing rocks at them from a rooftop had endangered their lives. But Mahmoud Al-Jabji's family claims that he was inside the house when the bullet hit him.

The IDF also announced Sunday that on Saturday, it arrested two Palestinians at a checkpoint west of Jenin, who were suspected of planning a suicide bombing inside Israel.

Meanwhile, Hamas announced Sunday that it would boycott discussions among the Palestinian factions on expanding the cease-fire to the West Bank, to protest Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' decision to halt talks on establishing a Palestinian unity government. Abbas stopped the discussions because he said that they had reached a dead end. But Sunday, he said that he still hoped agreement on a unity government could be reached.

Also Sunday, PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who had been in Qatar and arrived in Syria, announced that the Qatari government had agreed to pay the salaries of all teachers employed by the PA Education Ministry, at a cost of $22.5 million a month.