Israel kills Hamas man, locks down Palestinians

9.30am

GAZA - The Israeli army kept up pressure in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday, killing a senior Hamas commander, as forces sealed off the Palestinian territories for the Jewish holiday season in Israel.

The militant group Hamas said Israeli forces killed Abdel Aziz al-Ashqar, 35, with a tank shell when he tried to fire an anti-tank rocket as gunbattles flared during the Israeli army's three-day-old raid, its largest operation in the area in months.

The Gaza incursion - in which troops have killed three militants and three civilians, including a 9-year-old boy - was the latest chapter in Israeli military reprisals for suicide bombings that killed 16 people in southern Israel last week.

The growing spiral of violence could further complicate Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw troops and settlers from the occupied Gaza Strip by the end of 2005.

Palestinian militants are determined to claim any Israeli pullout as a victory, but Israel has vowed to smash them first.

Reflecting bitter divisions within Israel over Sharon's pullout plan, settler leaders warned that implementation could ignite a civil war, and prominent hardline Israelis urged soldiers to disobey orders to dismantle settlements.

Citing the threat of Palestinian attacks, the army said it had imposed "general closure" on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a strict travel ban expected to stay in place for several weeks.

Military officials said restrictions would cover the three-day Jewish New Year holiday, which starts on Wednesday, and could be extended through the Yom Kippur fast day 10 days later and the weeklong Sukkot festival, that begins on September 29.

Such measures have become routine for major holidays, when Israelis gather in synagogues or at outdoor festivities, since the start of a Palestinian uprising four years ago.

Israel says the ban, which bars entry of Palestinians into the Jewish state, is meant to guard against suicide bombers.

Palestinians condemn the policy. "Closure is the recipe that Israel uses at all times," Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat told Reuters. "It is collective punishment."

The holiday restrictions come on top of already tight limits on Palestinian movement, including within the territories, which are riddled with army checkpoints and roadblocks.

Tensions have been heightened by the army's move in northern Gaza, an operation it says is aimed at stopping militants from firing makeshift Qassam rockets into southern Israel.

A helicopter launched a missile into the Jabalya refugee camp wounding three people. The army said the missile was fired into a field used to shoot rockets.

Over the past three days, Israeli forces have surrounded two towns and thrust into the first line of houses in Jabalya, Gaza's most populous camp with 100,000 inhabitants. Medics said more than 70 people had been wounded by Israeli fire.

Israel's army killed 14 Hamas fighters at a Gaza training camp on Tuesday in its deadliest strike against the Islamic group, which is sworn to Israel's destruction.

That led Hamas, which carried out the double suicide bombing in the Israeli city of Beersheba on August 31, to vow revenge.

Despite the raid, militants have kept up a steady rate of rocket launches from fenced-in Gaza into Israeli towns and settlements. There have been no reports of casualties.

- REUTERS