GAZA CITY (AP):
AN ISRAELI air strike killed two Hamas militants yesterday while Palestinian militants bombarded southern Israel with homemade rockets, as a 16-month-old ceasefire unravelled and the two sides moved closer toward a broader conflict.
The violence complicated Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to persuade the Hamas-led Government to endorse a document that would implicitly recognise Israel. In a new blow to Abbas, the Hamas prisoner who helped draft the proposal withdrew his name from the document, deepening internal Palestinian divisions ahead of a referendum on the plan.
EXPLOSION
Hamas militants called off the truce late Friday after Israel assassinated a leading commander in the Hamas-run security forces and an explosion blamed on Israeli artillery fire killed eight Palestinian beachgoers.
Israel's Defence Minister Amir Peretz yesterday approved plans by the army to begin targeting Hamas political figures if rocket fire continues, Israel TV reported. Peretz accepted the proposal, presented by military chief Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, but ordered the army to wait several days before carrying out the plan in hopes that the situation would calm, the report said.
Hamas has largely honoured the February 2005 ceasefire, and the group's latest statements have raised concerns that it could carry out a new wave of suicide bombings. In 4 1/2 years before the ceasefire, Hamas suicide bombers killed more than 250 Israelis, according to Israeli officials.
MANOEUVRING ROOM
But Hamas has less manoeuvring room as governing power than it did as a mere militia. Open confrontation with Israel would deepen its isolation at a time it is struggling to overcome a crippling international aid boycott.
Palestinian militants fired more than 20 homemade rockets toward the southern Israeli town of Sderot yesterday, including one that hit a school and critically wounded a man, hospital officials said. A second man was lightly wounded in a separate rocket attack, officials said.
Hamas claimed responsibility for most of the rockets. "We have decided to make Sderot a ghost town," said Abu Ubeideh, a spokesman for the group's military wing.
