Israel said on Saturday it had received no official notification from Egypt that it was recalling its ambassador to Tel Aviv after Egyptian state television reported that claim earlier in the day.

"At no time has Israel been officially notified of a recall of the Egyptian ambassador," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

Egypt called on Israel Saturday to immediately halt punitive strikes on the Palestinian Gaza Strip after militants carried out deadly attacks in Israel.

"Egypt denounces the use of force against civilians in any circumstance and strongly advises Israel to immediately stop its military operations against Gaza," a foreign ministry statement said.

A monitoring force stationed in the Sinai in keeping with the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel said Israel violated it when its troops entered Egyptian territory and fired on security personnel, state news agency MENA reported on Saturday.

"The (Multinational Force and Observer) recorded two violations committed by Israel," the agency said, citing an MFO report.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Saturday said Israel "regrets" the deaths of Egyptian policemen killed on the border during an Israeli pursuit of militants who killed eight Israelis.

"Israel regrets the deaths of Egyptian policemen during the attacks on the Egyptian-Israeli border," Barak said about Thursday's assault by gunmen in the Eilat region of Israel.

Egypt has decided to withdraw its ambassador to Israel to protest the deaths of five policemen killed on the border during retaliatory attacks on Palestinian militants, state television said Saturday.

"Egypt has decided to withdraw its ambassador to Israel until there is an official apology," it said. Egypt's military chief of staff, Sami Enan, headed to the Sinai on Friday to probe the deaths of the policemen killed a day earlier.

Accounts of the attacks that killed eight Israelis near the border with Egypt on Thursday paint a picture of an operation carefully planned and executed.

The triple attacks, attributed by Israel to radical Palestinian activists from the Gaza Strip, took the army and police by surprise, judging by the ensuing confusion and inaccuracy of initial reports.

Egypt protested to Israel on Friday and demanded a probe into the deaths of its policemen a day earlier on the Israeli border as Israeli troops pursued militants behind deadly attacks, the official MENA news agency reported.

"Egypt filed an official complaint with Israel following yesterday's deaths at the border between Israel and Egypt," the agency reported.

Gaza militants blamed for shooting attacks near the Egyptian border that killed eight Israelis, denied Friday that they were involved, as the hunt for the killers moved to Egypt.

"We salute (the operation) and we are proud of it, but we do not claim it," Popular Resistance Committees spokesman Abu Mujahid told Agence France Presse in the Gaza city of Rafah as the faction buried five members killed in a retaliatory Israeli air strike a day earlier.

Egyptian state television said on Friday two unknown Egyptians were killed along with three policemen by Israeli gunfire the previous day when Israeli forces were tracking down militants behind deadly attacks in their territory.

Security officials had said that three policemen were killed on Thursday when an Israeli Apache gunship fired a rocket at militants it was pursuing along the border, after attacks on Israeli buses and cars killed eight.

Gaza militants on Friday fired 12 rockets into Israel, seriously injuring one person after a night of Israeli air strikes which killed a teenager and hurt 17 other people.

Most of them caused no injuries or damage but two struck the southern coastal town of Ashdod on Friday morning, damaging a school and a synagogue and seriously wounding two Israelis, one seriously, Israeli police and the military said.