Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak yesterday warned Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu against launching a new war on Gaza, as they met in a bid to break the impasse in Middle East peace negotiations.

Mr Mubarak’s remarks were made during joint talks in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, which came after several weeks of rising tensions and clashes along Israel’s border with the Palestinian enclave.

At the meeting, the Egyptian leader warned of the “danger of the latest Israeli threats and their repercussions on the stability and security of the region and the cause of Middle East peace,” the official Mena news agency reported.

“Mubarak affirmed Egypt’s rejection of any new offensive on Gaza,” it said.

Senior Israeli officials have warned in recent weeks that Israel could launch another strike on Gaza, like the devastating 22-day war that ended in January 2009.

That offensive killed some 1,400 Palestinians, around half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.

Following the war, the number of rocket attacks dropped significantly, although 230 rockets and mortar rounds were fired into Israel last year, the army said.

Israel’s vice prime minister Silvan Shalom said last month that Israel would be forced to “respond with all our force” if Gaza militants kept firing rockets into the Jewish state.

The warnings were made against the backdrop of almost daily rocket attacks and retaliatory Israeli air strikes on Gaza.

Late on Wednesday, Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians who were apparently trying to breach the border fence after a day in which militants fired seven projectiles, most of them mortar rounds, into southern Israel without causing casualties or damage.

Mr Mubarak also warned the Israeli leader about the impact of a surge in violence on the deadlocked peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.