Gaza ceasefire in tatters

JERUSALEM - A series of Israeli attacks on militants in the Gaza Strip has left the fragile ceasefire in the region in tatters, weeks before Jewish settlers are due to withdraw from the area.

Yesterday an Israeli sniper killed Sa'id Siyyam, a Hamas military commander, in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis.

Hours later, missiles were launched at a car in Beit Lahia, injuring one bystander, according to witnesses.

A single shot, fired from the neighbouring Ganei Tal settlement, hit the Siyyam, a 32-year-old father of four in the neck, as he was sitting on the roof of his house.

He was the eighth victim in a new round of assassinations of Islamist fighters after a nine-month break.

The resumption of "targeted killings" was provoked by last Tuesday's suicide bombing in the Israeli resort of Netanya and by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire on Jewish civilian targets inside the Gaza Strip and across the border.

Two settlers were seriously wounded yesterday in Nevei Dekalim, near Khan Yunis, in apparent retaliation for the Siyyam killing.

A month before Israel plans to evacuate all 21 Gaza settlements, the ceasefire agreed at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit in February is crumbling by the hour.

Fearing that the return to violence could jeopardise the disengagement, Condoleezza Rice, the American Secretary of State, is planning an emergency visit later this week.

Egypt yesterday sent a high-level security team to Gaza to try to restore calm.

Israel, which massed a large armoured and infantry force on the Gaza border at the end of last week, yesterday gave Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, 24 hours to rein in Hamas and other militias.

Shaul Mofaz, the Defence Minister, warned the Palestinian Authority that otherwise Israel would launch a large-scale ground operation to stop all shelling until the disengagement takes place.

Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, told his Cabinet: "I have instructed the security establishment to take all measures, without restrictions, in order to stop the wave of terrorism and to strike at the terrorist organisations and the terrorists. We are greatly interested in reaching a diplomatic settlement, but this is impossible while terrorism runs amok along our borders."

Palestinian police exchanged automatic fire with Hamas gunmen in Gaza over the weekend.

In a televised speech on Saturday, Mr Abbas insisted that the ceasefire was a high Palestinian interest.

"We will not allow anyone to violate it," he warned.

But Israel was not satisfied that the Palestinian leader was doing enough. His security forces have yet to prove that they are sufficiently strong and motivated for the task.

Police took the symbolic step yesterday of removing green Hamas flags from electricity poles, but would not risk entering militia strongholds in the refugee camps.

Hamas remains defiant. Its gunmen shot Ra'id Abu Haloub, a police commander who had ordered his men to open fire on the rocket squads, in both legs on Saturday night.

The Interior Ministry accused the militia of threatening to burn the official Palestinian television station for screening an anti-Hamas film.

Musheer al Masri, a Hamas spokesman, said: "This is a dispute between those who accept the dictates of the United States and the Zionists, who urge them to shoot at our fighters, and the forces of resistance who believe in resistance as a strategic choice."

Mr Sharon, who is determined to forge ahead with the disengagement on schedule, is waging a war on two fronts: against Palestinian gunmen, who want to celebrate the withdrawal as a victory for armed resistance, and against his own right wingers, who still hope against hope to force him to cancel it and are planning a march of thousands of protesters today.

After hundreds of settlers and their supporters clashed with soldiers and police on the Gaza border at the weekend, Mr Sharon ordered troops to use "all force" to stop them entering the strip, which was closed by military order last week.

"Sticks can't be placed in the wheels of the army during its intensive actions to prevent attacks," the Prime Minister said.

Demonstrators broke the leg of an infantry officer.

Two religious soldiers refused to disperse the rioters and fled into one of the settlements. Seven others were arrested after they too disobeyed orders. The army is threatening to disband their unit, which serves part time as combat soldiers and part time as Talmudic students.

Two former chief rabbis, associated with the national religious movement, Avraham Shapira and Mordechai Eliyahu, issued a religious ruling on Friday forbidding troops from enforcing the Gaza closure.

- INDEPENDENT