Israel braced for suicide attacks after Gaza bloodshed

Israel was bracing itself today for suicide and other revenge attacks by Palestinian militants after the bloodiest day of fighting in the Gaza Strip in 16 months.

Fifteen Palestinians died and more than 50 were wounded in clashes yesterday, as Israeli troops entered Gaza.

Islamic Hamas responded with an ominous vow of retaliation, urging all of its cells throughout Gaza and the West Bank to attack. Similar calls in the past have been followed within days – sometimes hours – by suicide bombings in Israel.

The stepped-up violence was linked by some to prime minister Ariel Sharon’s proposals for a unilateral pullout from most of Gaza. With many Israelis, including the military’s intelligence chief, concerned such a move might be viewed by Palestinians as a sign of weakness, analysts warned that more military action in the territory could lie ahead.

If peace talks fail, Sharon has talked of removing up to 17 of 20 Israeli settlements in Gaza and imposing a temporary boundary in the West Bank. Israel captured the two areas, where the Palestinians hope to declare an independent state, in the 1967 Six Day War.

Senior military officers have said privately that they believe there is a need to step up pressure on the Palestinians ahead of any withdrawal.

“That is presumably what we saw today and what we will see more of,” said Israeli analyst Yossi Alpher.

The fiercest fighting took place in the Shajaiyeh neighbourhood of Gaza City. Twelve militants, including the son of a prominent Palestinian leader and a senior Hamas activist, were killed and more than 40 were wounded, Palestinian doctors said.

In a separate raid in the Rafah refugee camp along the Gaza-Egypt border, troops killed three Palestinians, including a militant, as they searched for tunnels used for arms smuggling. The forces demolished three houses and razed citrus and olive groves.

The army said it had entered the Gaza City neighbourhood to search for militants who fired rockets at nearby Jewish settlements. It said the fighting broke out after militants fired missiles at Israeli tanks.

Among the dead were Mohammed Hilles, 18, the son of Ahmed Hilles, the top leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction in Gaza, and senior Hamas activist Hani Abu Skhaila.

The fighting was the deadliest in Gaza since 19 Palestinians were killed in clashes in Khan Younis on October. 7, 2002.

Later, thousands of people marched in funeral processions for some of the militants. Masked men in military-style uniforms carried bodies on stretchers, while others fired machine guns into the air and called for revenge.

After the fighting died down, four small rockets were fired into Israel, causing no injuries or damage, the army said. Later, militants fired a mortar at a Jewish settlement in Gaza, badly damaging a house and injuring a settler.

Hamas, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel during more than three years of fighting, said the rocket attacks were the first in what promised to be a painful reaction to the Israeli attack.

The group’s militant wing issued a statement calling on all its cells in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem to carry out “huge martyrdom operations ... everywhere in Palestine”, referring to suicide bombings in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi posted a statement on the group’s Web site promising “astounding retaliation”.

While Hamas routinely vows retaliation for Israeli attacks, it rarely issues such widespread calls to arms. In the past, such language has often been followed quickly by violence.

When Israel tried to assassinate Rantisi last June, Hamas responded the following day with a suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 17 people.

Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia said the Gaza violence endangered efforts to revive long-stalled peace talks.

“We believe that these killings must stop immediately if the peace process is to go forward and bring results,” Qureia said in Rome after talks with Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini.