Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday said the Israel Defense Forces would push forward with the latest crackdown on Palestinian militants, despite Israel's warming ties with the new Palestinian government in the West Bank.

Olmert spoke a day after a series of Israel Air Force strikes killed seven Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel also has been targeting militants in the West Bank, including members of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

Abbas, a moderate who favors peace talks with Israel, has been trying to consolidate his control of the West Bank since the rival Islamic group Hamas violently seized control of Gaza last month. Abbas last week ordered all armed groups, including Fatah gunmen, to disarm as part of his efforts to restore law and order.

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Olmert told his cabinet at a weekly meeting on Sunday that the behavior of the new Palestinian government creates paths for cooperation, citing the weapons ban as an important step.

"Some of the steps already taken by the Palestinian government ... will help us find, slowly and cautiously, paths of cooperation between us and them, which without doubt will enable us to advance on the diplomatic track," he said in a statement to reporters.

"At the same time, the war on terror continues and will not cease," he said. Let nobody have any doubt, this activity will continue in a concentrated way. He noted the latest attacks in Gaza as well as last week's arrest raids against Fatah militants in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Abbas excluded Hamas from an emergency cabinet he established in the West Bank after the group's Gaza takeover last month. Abbas appointed independent Salam Fayad to head the new cabinet as prime minister. The Palestinians now have rival governments in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel, along with the international community, has rallied behind Abbas in the standoff. It has promised a series of gestures to bolster Abbas, including plans to free some 250 Palestinian prisoners and unfreeze some of the hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian tax funds it has withheld since Hamas was elected to power in 2006.

Israel's Cabinet was to vote Sunday on the release, but a government official said Saturday that the vote would be delayed. Israel still intends to go through with the release, he said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.

Security officials said the reason for the delay was the fact that the list of prisoners to be freed has not yet been finalized.

Olmert had pledged to release the prisoners at a high-profile meeting in Egypt with Abbas and the leaders of Egypt and Jordan last week. Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin had said the release would come up for a vote Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting.

The prisoners slated to be freed are all members of Abbas' Fatah party.

The release would be the largest since February 2005, when Israel freed 500 prisoners after a summit in Egypt also aimed at bolstering Abbas, who had just won election as Palestinian Authority chairman.

Palestinian officials have suggested the pledge to free 250 prisoners encompassed far less prisoners than had been hoped. Israel is holding some 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails. Hamas and other factions criticized Abbas harshly for accepting the offer to release only prisoners from his faction.

During the meeting, the cabinet also agreed that four Jordanians jailed for life for the 1990 murder of two Israel Defense Forces soldiers should be transferred to Jordanian custody for the remainder of their sentences.