Israel strikes back after rocket attacks

Israeli aircraft struck today against Gaza militants who have bombarded border communities with rockets.

Israel vowed to keep up a military and economic siege on the territory until its Islamic Hamas rulers halt the violence.

Hamas took responsibility yesterday for a suicide attack on Monday in the southern Israeli town of Dimona.

The Islamic group’s first suicide attack in Israel in three years underscored Hamas’s ability to hamper US-backed efforts by moderate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to reach a peace deal with Israel by the end of the year.

Israel insists on an end to violence before it implements any peace agreement, but Mr Abbas has had no control over the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized control there from his forces in June.

The fact that Monday’s bombers came from the West Bank, not Gaza, gave greater weight to Israel’s demand that Mr Abbas take stronger action against militants in the West Bank too.

Early today, Israeli aircraft fired at militants who had launched rockets moments earlier, the military said. Hamas said four of its men were moderately injured.

Gaza militants said Israel carried out several airstrikes overnight, but the military confirmed only one.

Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at Israeli border communities yesterday and early today, moderately wounding a 14-year-old girl and knocking out power in parts of the rocket-scarred town of Sderot.

The salvo followed an Israeli airstrike yesterday that killed six Hamas policemen in southern Gaza. Israel said the strike was retaliation for a rocket attack on Sderot earlier in the day that damaged two factories.

Israel indicated today it would not let up its operations against Hamas.

Israeli vice premier Haim Ramon said: “We need to understand there is a war in the south. The war against Hamas has to be fought on all fronts.”

Israel will continue to use the “economic weapon” against the Gaza Strip, and reduce supplies of fuel, electricity and some food to the territory in an attempt to persuade Hamas to stop the rockets, Mr Ramon said.

Israel cut off virtually all shipments into Gaza three weeks ago after Hamas barraged Israel with rockets following an Israeli operation that killed 19 Gazans, most of them militants.

The blockade tightened the economic noose on Gaza, whose southern border had been sealed by Egypt after the Hamas takeover.

On January 23, Hamas militants tore down sections of Gaza’s border with Egypt, enabling hundreds of thousands of Gazans to break out and buy supplies in an Egyptian border town. But after 12 days of anarchy, Egyptian forces sealed the breaks on Sunday.

The showdown between Hamas leaders determined to cling to power and an international community, led by Israel and Egypt, seeking to isolate them has created an increasingly volatile situation.