Israel mounts new air strikes, Hamas ends attacks

GAZA - Israel launched multiple missile strikes in Gaza yesterday, hours after the main Palestinian militant group said it would stop attacking the Jewish state following Israeli air raids in response to rocket attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced a vote in his Likud party that threatened his leadership because of a rightist challenge to his withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza. A stormy eve-of-vote session on Sunday underlined party splits.

The worst surge of violence since Israel's pullout from Gaza on September 12 after 38 years of occupation put pressure on a shaky ceasefire and on Sharon at the weekend.

While Hamas -- the most powerful Palestinian militant group -- said it was halting attacks, not all militant factions have followed suit.

Israeli aircraft attacked at least five targets across the Gaza Strip early yesterday. One woman was lightly wounded by shrapnel in a strike in the north of the territory.

The army said the raids targeted buildings used for making or storing weapons by Hamas, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It said 50 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants were arrested in the West Bank.

Hamas's most senior leader, Mahmoud al-Zahar, announced his group's decision to halt attacks shortly after Israel killed an Islamic Jihad leader in an air strike in a resumption of its policy of targeting militants for assassination.

"The movement declares an end to its operations from the Gaza Strip against the Israeli occupation, which came ... in response to the assaults by the enemy," Zahar told reporters, adding Hamas would abide by a ceasefire declared in March.

The decision would ensure the safety of Palestinians in Gaza, he said.

"HAMAS STILL AN ENEMY"

A senior Israeli government official, who declined to be identified, said Hamas would prove it was serious about ending violence by dismantling itself.

"As long as Hamas remains an armed group and is sworn to the destruction of Israel, it will remain an enemy and will be treated as such," said the official, without elaborating on whether Israel would carry on targeting Hamas militants.

Likud's central committee began meeting in Tel Aviv on Sunday before Monday's vote on a motion by Sharon's rightist challenger, Benjamin Netanyahu, to bring the party's primary forward to November and force a leadership contest.

In what could be a defining moment in Israeli politics, Sharon stormed out of the meeting after his microphone was cut off as he twice attempted to begin a speech to the rowdy forum. Aides accused his opponents of sabotaging the sound system.

He has declined to say whether he would remain in the party if the 3,000-member central committee vote went against him, raising speculation he may bolt and form a new centrist alliance that would tap into mainstream support for the Gaza pullout.

Sharon's critics, led by Netanyahu, have said the pullout after five years of Palestinian violence would only bring more cross-border attacks on Israel from militants.

"I suggest everyone keep their cool. This is not the first time terror groups are trying to hit us. We must talk less and act more," Sharon was quoted by Israel Radio as saying in the speech he planned to deliver.

Militants in Gaza from the Popular Resistance Committees and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group, fired several rockets into Israel hours after Sunday's Likud session and after Zahar made his comments.

Hostilities first erupted when a blast on Friday killed 16 people at a Hamas rally in Gaza.

Hamas blamed Israel and militants fired at least 40 rockets into the Jewish state in response, though Israel denied responsibility and the Palestinian Authority said it appeared to be an accident caused by Hamas members carrying explosives.

Israeli air strikes killed two Hamas militants on Saturday.

- REUTERS