Israeli tanks move into Gaza

Israeli tanks moved into Gaza City early today in the first operation there since a bombing attack killed a Hamas leader and 14 other Palestinians in a mission that drew harsh world criticism.

Witnesses said seven tanks accompanied a bulldozer that flattened a small Palestinian military intelligence position and a metal workshop.

Soldiers then blew up another workshop in a blast that could be heard all over the city.

Gunmen fired at the Israelis, and two Palestinians were wounded in the exchange, witnesses said.

Late yesterday, a rocket hit an Israeli village just outside Gaza, causing some damage but no casualties, the military said.

In the West Bank, Palestinian gunmen killed a rabbi and wounded another Israeli in a roadside ambush near a Jewish settlement.

Despite the violence, tentative efforts were under way to restart talks among Palestinian factions toward stopping attacks against Israel. Palestinians said the Israeli bombing sabotaged plans for a unilateral truce declaration by one or more Palestinian groups.

Palestinian and Israeli officials were meeting today to discuss easing Israeli restrictions in the West Bank, where Israeli forces have controlled seven of the eight main cities and towns since last month.

Israeli officials continued to justify the air strike on Tuesday that killed Hamas commander Salah Shehadeh, while apologising for the civilian casualties. But international denunciations continued.

Calling the Israeli attack "abominable", Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak claimed Israel’s goal was to sabotage cease-fire efforts. Mubarak was speaking in Paris.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said his government was reviewing Israel’s use of US-made weapons in the wake of the air strike.

Israeli defence minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said yesterday that Israel called off strikes against Shehadeh several times after learning that civilians were with him.

Last Saturday night, "the plane was in the air" with the bomb when Israel discovered that one of Shehadeh’s seven daughters was with him, and the strike was called off, Mr Ben-Eliezer said.

But Shehadeh’s 14-year-old daughter Iman was killed in Tuesday’s strike, along with Shehadeh, his wife, a bodyguard and 11 other people, most of them children in adjoining buildings.

Addressing the Labour Party that he leads, Mr Ben-Eliezer defended the decision to kill Shehadeh, commander of the Hamas military wing which is responsible for hundreds of attacks against Israelis.

Mr Ben-Eliezer claimed Shehadeh was planning a "mega-terror" attack inside Israel, "perhaps the biggest Israel has ever seen, a truck with a ton of explosives that was intended to shock the people of Israel and cause hundreds, hundreds of dead".

In Lebanon, a TV station run by Hezbollah guerrillas said a faction affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement was threatening to kill Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other top leaders.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Shaath said the Israeli air strike was aimed at scuppering a unilateral cease-fire that the Tanzim, a leading militant group, was set to declare.

The Tanzim was also talking with other militant factions, such as Hamas, which were considering the proposal.

Yesterday, Rabbi Elimelech Shapira, 43, was killed and another Israeli seriously wounded in a roadside ambush in the West Bank, the military said.

Palestinians opened fire on their car near the Jewish settlement of Alei Zahav, south of the Palestinian town of Qalqiliya. Shapira was the director of a rabbinical seminary at the settlement of Paduel.