On Monday the pattern of heavy Palestinian rockets barrage and Israeli airstrikes continued as the Israeli "Operation Pillar of Defense" entered its sixth day.

So far Israel has only enlisted its air force in the operation, aimed at stopping the low intensity rocket and mortar fire which have become an almost weekly occurrence for residents in southern Israel.

However, during the last six days, Hamas has fired rockets towards Jerusalem and on Tel Aviv, a considerable escalation as in the past these major cities have not been targeted.

On Friday, the Israeli government cleared the army to enlist 75, 000 reservist troops.

Parallel to the military preparations, the international community, with Egypt taking the lead, is trying to get the sides to sing a cease-fire agreement. However, due to the wide gap between the two sides, a truce deal remains distant.

Dr. Mark Heller, of the University of Tel Aviv, told Xinhua Monday that the hard part is not for the sides to agree on a cease- fire, the difficulty lies in finding an agreement which last longer than the countless cease-fire that have come and gone over the last four years.

"That's why all the discussions are about the conditions of the cease-fire, I don't think there is any change for an unconditional cease-fire," Heller said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jonathan Spyer, of the Interdisciplinary-Center in Herzliya, said that right now it looks like the sides are very far apart and that an agreement does not look to be immediately forthcoming.

"Of course if an agreement is reached because of the nature of the relations between Israel and Hamas, this will only be a cease- fire agreement, it's not going to be anything more than that," Spyer said.

Spyer said Israel has said its aim is not to bring down the Hamas authority in Gaza, so logically it leads to the conclusion that there has to be a cease-fire at some stage. "But that all the information we have of the current stances of the two sides is that right now they are very apart and a cease-fire doesn't look to me imminent."

Heller argued that neither side, but particularly Hamas, will agree to something that makes it look like they comes out of this as a loser, and therefore Hamas needs something either in the form symbolic victory that it can claim such as an actual missile falling in Tel Aviv, or alternatively some political gain such as something to do with the control of Gaza.

"Israel of course is primarily concerned with mainly being certain that isn't just a couple of days and frankly there isn't enough confidence in Israel either of Hamas' declarations of intent or even Hamas' capabilities of enforcing self-imposed restrictions or restrictions on other organizations," Heller said.

The Israeli demands, according to unconfirmed reports, includes lull for a period of more than 15 years, and immediate end of arms smuggling to Gaza, the inclusion of all Palestinian organization in Gaza in the cease-fire and end to attacks on soldiers near Israel's Gaza border.

"Therefore that means the involvement of the third party and the most logical candidate for that is Egypt," he added.

Both Israel and Hamas are positive to the Egyptian mediation attempts, despite the fact that Israel's old ally Hosni Mubarak has been replaced by Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas.

However, although there has been a regime change in Egypt, the country, especially its armed forces, still remains dependent on American financial aid, and Israel sees the American involvement as a guarantee that its interests will be taken into considerations.

Heller argued that one of the reasons why Israel feels that it can trust Egypt to succeed in implementing a cease-fire agreement while Hamas cannot, is that "Egypt can first of all provide Hamas with incentives or the need to (enforce) it," and "I'm not sure that Hamas' problem is its physical capability as much as the political will."

Nevertheless, while, Egypt does hold considerable influence over Hamas, due to the shared ideological background, its influence over the Islamic Jihad, which has been the instigator of numerous rocket attacks prior to "Operation Pillar of Defense," is backed by Iran, and hence lacks strong ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in Egypt and is Sunni Muslim as oppose to Iran which is dominantly Shite Muslim.