Israeli military officials said their 19-day offensive in the Gaza Strip had weakened Hamas but that a knockout blow was unlikely. The conflict showed no signs of ending Wednesday as diplomats reported little progress in negotiating a truce.

In Cairo, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon met Wednesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a bid to break the diplomatic impasse. Ban said he would keep pushing Israel and Hamas to observe a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire but was not optimistic.

“We shared our feelings and frustrations and pain over the ongoing violence in Gaza,” Ban said of his meeting with Mubarak, whose government is trying to mediate a settlement between Israel and Hamas.

Meantime, three rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon Wednesday. No injuries were reported but the fusillade added to jitters in an already tense region. It was the second rocket attack on northern Israel in a week, raising fears that Lebanese militants could try to widen the conflict.

No groups asserted responsibility for the strikes. The Israeli military said it returned fire and that it viewed “the Lebanese government and military as responsible to prevent such attacks.”

The Israeli military also confirmed that it had turned away an Iranian ship that was approaching Gaza. Iran is a key backer of Hamas. Iranian officials said the ship was loaded with humanitarian goods, which it would attempt to deliver at a nearby Egyptian port, the Reuters news service reported from Tehran.

In Gaza, the Israeli military said it carried out 60 airstrikes overnight, destroying a police court in Gaza City and weapons caches. Israeli military officials said their strategy was to squeeze Hamas militarily as they try to pressure the Islamist movement into a truce that would include a long-term commitment to stop firing rockets into southern Israel.

Some Hamas leaders have said they are willing to cut a deal, but others have pledged to continue fighting.

While diplomatic efforts continued in Egypt, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden issued a new audiotape to an Islamist Web site criticizing Arab governments for not doing more to support Palestinians in Gaza, and calling on Muslims to launch a jihad to repel the Israeli offensive. The statement was 22-minutes and branched into a variety of topics, including the global economic crisis, and the transition of power in Washington, according to IntelCenter, a private company that studies terrorist groups.

Despite public vows by Israeli politicians to destroy Hamas’s military capability, Israeli officials said Tuesday that the movement had lost only a fraction of its fighters and retained a large stockpile of rockets and other armaments. A “few hundred” Hamas fighters have been killed, out of a total force of 15,000, according to a senior Israeli military official.

In a briefing for foreign journalists, the senior official said Hamas still has hundreds of rockets and other missiles. “We do not see where they have a shortage of personnel to fight,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing intelligence matters.

Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli military chief of staff, said Gaza had been pummeled by more than 2,300 airstrikes since the war began Dec. 27. “We have achieved a lot in hitting Hamas and its infrastructure, its rule and its armed wing, but there is still work ahead,” he told the Israeli parliament Tuesday.

Offensive Unlikely to Put End to Hamas, Israel Says – washingtonpost.com