Israel attacks Gaza office of Palestinian PM

Prime Minister Haniyeh (C) visits his office after the strike. Picture / Reuters.

GAZA - Israel's air force has attacked the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in the latest phase of a Gaza offensive designed to force militants into freeing an abducted soldier.

Haniyeh, a leader of the ruling militant Islamist party Hamas, was not in his Gaza City office at the time of the helicopter strike, witnesses said. One Hamas member was killed in a second attack on an office used by forces loyal to Hamas. A third strike hit a Hamas school but there were no casualties.

Haniyeh arrived quickly to survey the damage done to his Gaza offices and to condemn the attack.

"This is the policy of the jungle and arrogance," Haniyeh said.

"Nothing will affect our spirit and nothing will affect our steadfastness."

Israel sent troops and tanks into southern Gaza on Wednesday in a clampdown on the coastal territory after Palestinian gunmen, some from the armed wing of Hamas, seized Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid last Sunday.

With a Palestinian humanitarian crisis looming, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was expected later on Sunday to seek cabinet approval for reopening the main commercial crossing into Gaza so Palestinians could import food, emergency electricity generators and other vital items.

"We expect Karni (crossing) to be opened by Monday," an Israeli political source said on condition of anonymity.

"But the military operations are going ahead."

Even before the standoff, the Palestinian government was already straining under a United States-led economic embargo imposed to get it to recognise Israel.

The militants holding Corporal Gilad Shalit have demanded Israel release of hundreds of Palestinians from its jails before they will free him.

Israel has ruled this out and threatened to step up its military offensive in Gaza, which it quit last year after 38 years of occupation.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian mediators have been involved in round-the-clock negotiations with Hamas in an attempt to defuse a standoff that has plunged relations with Israel to new lows and dashed hopes of renewed peace talks.

"Things are not deadlocked. People are looking for a satisfactory solution and hopefully we will get that solution," Abbas, a moderate whose Fatah group is a rival to Hamas, said on Saturday.

Abbas told reporters he still hoped some Palestinian demands would be met as part of any diplomatic breakthrough.

A Palestinian official quoted mediators as saying 19-year-old Shalit was alive after being treated for wounds.

US President George W Bush and other Western leaders have said freeing Shalit was key to ending the standoff and should be a first goal.

But Israel has faced Western censure for its initial response to the abduction. The Jewish state last week launched air strikes against the main Gaza power plant and road bridges as well as a round-up of senior Hamas politicians in the occupied West Bank.

Serious casualties have so far been limited to two dead militants.

The United Nations said its Middle East special envoy, Alvero de Soto, would go to Gaza on Sunday for talks with Abbas.

Diplomats said Egypt was trying to get Syria to lean on Damascus-based Hamas leaders who have greater sway over the group's armed wing than political leaders based in Gaza.

Israel has said it was playing no part in the mediation.

- REUTERS