The head of the Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet) Ronen Bar recommended that the government of Yair Lapid seek to end the military operation in Gaza before what he described as "mistakes that could involve it in a broader operation that it does not want," according to Hebrew media.
The Walla news website said that Barr made this recommendation during the cabinet meeting on Saturday evening.
And the website added - in its report today, Sunday, quoting two ministers who participated in the meeting - that Bar said that "efforts must be made to end the operation in Gaza before mistakes occur that would involve Israel in a broader operation that it does not want."
The website quoted Bar also as saying that "the operation achieved more goals than we set, and it will have an impact in other arenas as well, including a planned strategic goal of separating the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) from Islamic Jihad."
According to the same source, most of the participants in the meeting supported the recommendation of the Shin Bet chief.
The website added that senior Israeli officials stated that "everyone (in Israel) in general believes that it is necessary to end the process, but the conditions are not ripe yet for that."
escalating invitations
On the other hand, the leader of the left-wing Meretz party, Nestan Horowitz, who holds the position of Minister of Health, called for an end to the military operation in Gaza.
"We tried to prevent one launch (of rockets from the Gaza Strip) and we got 400 launches," according to the same source.
He added, "With our own hands, we have returned ourselves to the situation that was before, now we have to stop."
The Meretz party - which occupies 6 seats out of 120 in the current parliament - adopts positions that support separation from the Palestinians and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, according to the principle of the two-state solution.
Voices in Israel call for an end to the military operation in Gaza so that matters will not be drawn into a large-scale war (Reuters)
The Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that the cabinet meeting on Saturday concluded that the operation in Gaza had achieved most of its goals, and that Israel should strive to end it quickly.
She added - quoting sources who said she attended the meeting - that "Israel would like the process to end within hours, but it assumes that it will last for several more days, hoping that it will not be long."
"No one really knows when it will end," one of the sources told the newspaper.
For the third day in a row, the Israeli army continues to launch raids on the Gaza Strip, as part of a military operation it started last Friday, against targets it said belong to the Islamic Jihad movement.
These raids, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, resulted in the death of 31 Palestinians, including 6 children and 4 women, and the injury of 253 others.
On the other hand, Al-Quds Brigades (the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement) continued to fire rockets and mortar shells at Israeli positions adjacent to the Gaza Strip in response to the aggression.