Bush vows to support Israel

US President George W. Bush took a tough stance against Israel's armed foes on Thursday, a day after a rocket fired by Gaza militants wounded 14 people and triggered warnings of retaliation.

"The alliance between our governments is unbreakable," Bush said in remarks prepared for an address to the Israeli parliament marking the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel, an event the Palestinians regard as a "catastrophe."

"Israel's population may be just over seven million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you."

Bush planned to tell Israel's Knesset that the United States and its allies will keep up the battle against extremist groups, including Al-Qaeda, the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip.

"The president will reiterate that the United States is Israel's closest friend and ally," said US national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Bush, who is in Israel at the start of a five-day visit to the region, also warned that allowing archfoe Iran to obtain nuclear weapons would be "an unforgivable betrayal of future generations."

His address to parliament comes one day after a rocket fired by Gaza militants slammed into a crowded mall in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, leaving 14 people injured, three of them seriously.

Bush held talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other top officials after he arrived on Wednesday before attending a large conference in Jerusalem hosted by President Shimon Peres to mark Israel's 60th anniversary.

On Thursday, he was also scheduled to visit the ruins of the Masada desert fortress, which Israelis considered emblematic of Jewish resistance because Jews besieged in the hilltop position chose to kill themselves rather than surrender to the Romans during a rebellion in 70 AD.

Bush hopes to give impetus to peace talks during his visit, but the timing of his trip has angered Palestinians who mark Israel's 60 years on Thursday by remembering the 1948 exodus of some 760,000 Arabs after the birth of the state.

Palestinians planned several commemorations of what they call the Naqba, or "catastrophe" including mass rallies in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

Bush's visit comes amid renewed turmoil in the region, which bodes ill for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations that have made little tangible progress since they were revived at a conference he hosted in November.

Following his talks with Bush, Olmert stressed on Wednesday Israel would hold Hamas responsible for any attack launched from Gaza and will "take the necessary steps so that this will stop."

Two smaller Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack but Israel says Hamas is to blame since it controls Gaza where it ousted troops loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June.

Israel has carried out repeated military operations against Gaza in a bid to halt the almost daily rocket fire from the impoverished sliver of land.

Israel and Palestinian militants have talked separately to Egyptian mediators about a possible truce in Gaza, but Hamas rejected Israel's demand that it free an Israeli soldier captured by the Islamists almost two years ago.

After Wednesday's attack Israel launched an air strike east of Gaza City in which two Hamas militants were killed and four wounded, after operations earlier in the day killed four people, including three militants, medics said.

Several ministers on Thursday called for tough action against Hamas, and said Israeli troops were ready for combat.

"The Israeli army has never been this ready to launch a large-scale operation in Gaza," said Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a member of Israel's security cabinet.

"It may be that we have no choice but to destroy all the nests of terror. Apparently we'll have no choice," he told public radio.