The truce would allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

Foreign powers have increased pressure on both sides to halt hostilities and Israeli officials made clear that Israel had not rejected the French plan outright and was open to amendments.

But ahead of a meeting of Israel's security cabinet, political commentators predicted public anger over the widening of the rocket attacks to include Beersheba, 40 km (24 miles) from the Gaza Strip, would tip the scales against any suspension of strikes against Hamas.

"(The French) proposal contained no guarantees of any kind that Hamas will stop the rockets and smuggling," Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

"It is not realistic to expect Israel to cease fire unilaterally with no mechanism to enforce the cessation of shooting and terror from Hamas," he said on the fifth day of air strikes.

Another Israeli official said France might propose amendments to its plan.

At least two rockets hit Beersheba, the city Israel calls the capital of the Negev, its southern region. One struck a school that was empty. Municipal authorities had canceled classes after rockets landed in Beersheba on Tuesday evening for the first time.

Israeli aircraft carried out only two strikes in the Gaza Strip early on Wednesday, targeting smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt frontier and Hamas government offices in Gaza City, an Israeli military spokesman said.

Palestinian medical officials said one person, a paramedic, was killed.

Israel also has amassed armored forces on its border with the Gaza Strip in preparation for a possible ground offensive. But rain over the past few days and fresh showers on Wednesday could delay any push soon by tanks into the territory and also limit air operations.

Medical officials put Palestinian casualties at 385 dead and more than 800 wounded since the Israeli offensive began on Saturday. A United Nations agency said at least 62 of the dead were civilians. Four Israelis have been killed.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's centrist government launched the operation six weeks before a February 10 election that opinion polls predict the opposition right-wing Likud party will win, with the goal of halting rocket attacks by militants in Gaza.

Security debate

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Olmert, said the security cabinet would be updated on the French truce proposal and other ideas raised by the international community on halting the violence.

But Regev said: "Israel wants real and sustainable calm in the south. We want to free our civilian population from the daily terror of incoming Hamas rockets. A band-aid solution that is neither sustainable nor real will have us back to where we are today in a month or two. We must strive for a real solution."

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner repeated his call for an immediate end to the fighting and said a ceasefire allowing humanitarian access "has to be permanent and it has to be respected" because previous truces had failed.

The current violence erupted after a six-month ceasefire brokered by Egypt expired on December 19 and Hamas intensified rocket attacks from the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip.

Hamas has said the onus was on Israel to stop the assaults while Israeli media quoted as saying the operation was in the first of many stages.

Israeli media reported that cabinet ministers approved the mobilization of 2,500 army reservists, consolidating an earlier call-up of 6,500 soldiers for the garrison on the Gaza border.

France said it would host Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday and an Israeli official said French President Nicolas Sarkozy might visit Jerusalem next Monday.

In Gaza, basic food supplies were running low and power cuts were affecting much of the territory. Hospitals were struggling to cope with the high number of casualties from the offensive.

Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in 2007 from rival Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas. It has balked at demands by Western powers that it recognize Israel and renounce violence.