Israel strikes Hamas militants anew

An Israeli policeman and a paramedic, left, take cover as rockets fired from the Gaza.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli warplanes fired missiles into a car carrying Hamas militants and a load of weapons Sunday, killing three people, and also demolished arms factories of two Palestinian militant groups, the army said.

In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert threatened tougher action if intensified Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli border communities did not cease.

Channel 2 TV reported that Israel's Security Cabinet approved targeting Hamas militant leaders and sending Israeli commandos into Gaza to hit rocket squads. The Israeli government had no immediate comment. The sixth straight day of airstrikes came as an uneasy truce between warring Palestinian factions set in after a week of fierce fighting. Masked Hamas and Fatah gunmen who had controlled the streets and taken over apartment buildings in the previous week scaled back their presence, and residents ventured out of their homes to stock up on supplies.

Children went back to school in time for final exams, and adults returned to work.

Four previous truces quickly collapsed last week, but Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said he expected the cease-fire reached Saturday to stick because of Israel's military action.

Israel has carried out 21 airstrikes since Tuesday against Hamas rocket squads in Gaza whose attacks on Israeli border towns have sown panic and sent thousands fleeing to safer ground.

Twenty-seven Palestinians have been killed in the strikes, including the three who died Sunday in the attack on the car in Gaza City.

For the first time since the airstrikes began, Israel targeted weapons operations belonging to Islamic Jihad, a small militant group that has also been involved in rocket attacks on Israel. The army explained that it would go after all rocket operations, including those of Islamic Jihad.

A Palestinian shopowner disputed Israel's account that it destroyed a weapons factory in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, saying his stereo and video store had been mistakenly targeted.

Three rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel on Sunday, including one that hit an empty home. In all, more than 120 rockets have landed since Tuesday, by the army's count, none of them causing serious casualties.

The violence has destroyed a six-month-old truce between Israel and Gaza militants.

At the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday, Olmert said Israel will escalate its response if the "diplomatic and military efforts we have taken do not bring calm."

He did not elaborate. But on Saturday, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said the time was not ripe for a broad offensive in Gaza.

One option Israel is considering is deploying an international force along Gaza's border with Egypt to curb the smuggling of weapons and possibly to disarm militants, a Foreign Ministry official said.

It remains to be seen if the international community would be willing to take on such a task or whether the idea would win majority support in the Israeli government. Israel says U.N. troops stationed near its northern border have not stopped Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas from replenishing stocks depleted during last summer's war with Israel.

At the Vatican on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI denounced the Palestinian rocket salvos and also appealed for Israel to exercise restraint in the face of provocation.

"The clashes among Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip and the rocket attacks against inhabitants of the nearby Israeli cities, which prompted armed intervention, are provoking a bloody deterioration of the situation," Benedict told pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. "In the name of God, I beg that an end be put to this tragic violence."

More than 50 Palestinians were killed in the infighting that broke out last week after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah stationed thousands of loyalist security forces in Gaza City without consulting Hamas, Fatah's partner in the coalition government.

The infighting had threatened the survival of the fragile national unity government, formed in March to end an earlier round of factional bloodshed.

Source : news.yahoo.com