Enlarge imageBy Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed six Hamas gunmen on Friday in response to a deadly Palestinian rocket barrage and resumed its assassination policy against militants as a five-month-old truce appeared to be unravelling.
The Islamic group Hamas said air strikes in the West Bank and Gaza that killed five gunmen would "open the doors of hell" on Israel. Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Yousef said the killings were unjustified and would create more tension.
Palestinian gunmen have in the past few days bombarded Israelis in and around Gaza with rockets and mortar bombs in what they said were responses to Israeli killings of militants.
An Israeli air strike killed a Hamas gunman in the West Bank and shot dead his comrade after he escaped and fired at troops from a hideout. A second raid killed four militants in a car in Gaza, which Hamas officials said carried makeshift rockets.
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The Israel army said it targeted "wanted terrorists" in the West Bank and the Hamas men hit in Gaza intended to carry out rocket attacks.
Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, said it was reconsidering its commitment to the ceasefire. Yousef told reporters in Gaza that the government would try to salvage the truce and that no faction had the right to end it on its own.
The flare-up, one of the worst since Israel and the Palestinian Authority declared an end to hostilities in February, raised the prospect of disruption to Israel’s planned pullout of settlers from occupied Gaza next month.
Hours after the strikes, Israel massed several army vehicles around Gaza. News reports quoted security sources as saying Israel might raid militant strongholds in the area in the coming days to try to stop rocket launchers. The army had no comment.
A POSSIBLE SPRINGBOARD
The surge in bloodshed could also complicate Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw all Jewish settlers from Gaza starting in mid-August, a move international mediators see as a possible springboard to new peace talks.
Sharon said Israel would strike against militants, including those from Islamic Jihad, the group behind a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis on Tuesday. Israeli defence officials have vowed not to allow gunmen to disrupt the withdrawal.
"The pullout cannot commence under fire," Sharon told Israel’s Channel 2 television. "We will take all steps against Islamic Jihad without any limitations. The response to terror acts will be strong and harsh."
He added: "There is no chance to reach a peace agreement as long as terror occurs."
Israel had reaffirmed its intention to resume what it calls "targeted killings" of top militants following the suicide bombing. It had suspended the internationally condemned policy under the truce.
The Israeli strikes followed the killing of a young Israeli woman in a rocket attack on Thursday that sparked the fiercest internal fighting in years between militants and Palestinian police, who confronted them to try to stop further salvoes.
Two bystanders were killed and 26 people wounded in the gunbattles, which raised Palestinian fears of civil war, and the Palestinian Authority declared a state of emergency in Gaza.
President Mahmoud Abbas, struggling to salvage the truce and keep control in the face of a growing Hamas challenge, ordered police to act amid Israeli threats of harsh reprisals.
"Our position will remain clear and constant: There will be no retreat from imposing law and order," Yousef said.
