The choice of vocabulary from Matan Vilnai, an often outspoken former army general, was unusually grave - the word is not normally used for anything other than the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews.

Vilnai was speaking about his government's plans to tackle the continued firing of makeshift rockets, known as Qassams, from Gaza.

"The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," he said, in a telephone interview with army radio yesterday morning.

His spokesman later tried to play down the force of his language, saying he meant only "disaster".

"He did not mean to make any allusion to the genocide," the spokesman said.

Vilnai appeared to suggest a big military operation was inevitable. "It will be sad, and difficult, but we have no other choice," he said.

"We're getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we've used a small percentage of the army's power because of the nature of the territory."

In just two days this week, Israeli military strikes killed 33 Palestinians in Gaza, among them several civilians, including four young boys who were playing football and an infant.

Palestinian militants fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel, killing one man in Sderot, and reaching as far as the city of Ashkelon, 11 miles away.

It was the latest in several recent rounds of violence in Gaza, a conflict that Israeli officials already describe as a "war."

According to the United Nations, 80 Palestinians were killed and 82 injured by Israeli military strikes in Gaza in January alone.

At the same time 267 rockets and 256 mortars were fired towards Israel, injuring nine Israelis.

Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, travelled to Ashkelon yesterday and said a response was "required." "Hamas bears responsibility for this deterioration and it will also bear the results."

In Gaza, Hamas leaders said they too now believed a big Israeli operation was coming. "This is proof of Israel's pre-planned aggressive intentions against our people," said Ismail Haniyeh, the deposed Palestinian prime minister.

"They want the world to condemn what they call the Holocaust and now they are threatening our people with a Holocaust."

Hamas is reported to have indirectly offered a ceasefire with the Israelis. However, the Egyptian intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who often mediates between the two sides and who was due in Israel next Tuesday, cancelled his trip after the latest escalation of fighting.