Israel strikes Gaza city hours after rocket attack

2.00pm

GAZA - Israeli helicopter gunships struck two metal foundries on Friday, injuring four passers-by hours after Palestinian militants fired rockets at an Israeli town.

An army spokesman confirmed the attack, saying Israel had destroyed "two weapon workshops that were a part of the weapons production industry in the Gaza Strip," which he said militants had used to manufacture rockets to launch at Israeli targets.

Palestinian witnesses said ambulances raced to the scenes shortly after Israel's latest air raid, which came hours after Gaza militants fired a Qassam-type rocket in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, causing slight damage but no casualties.

The army said the foundries were used by militant groups such as Hamas to produce Qassam rockets and other munitions.

Hamas is one of the main militant groups responsible for suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000. Israeli forces have retaliated by assassinating Hamas leaders.

Israel Radio had reported earlier that the rockets that landed in Sderot were deadlier, more sophisticated and possessed a higher range than the types that had previously struck Israeli towns and Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Israel's cabinet approved in principle Prime Minister Ariel Sharon' plan to evacuate Gaza, but Israeli hardliners and some members of his right-wing Likud party fear such a pullout would give Palestinian militants a green light to take control of it.

Egypt has offered to help revamp Palestinian security forces to fill a vacuum in Gaza, once Israel removes Jewish settlements from occupied land there, so that Islamist militants cannot operate unchecked in the territory on its eastern border.

Also, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had pledged to assert control over Gaza after an Israeli withdrawal and fight militants who break the law, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Friday.

Asked if he would not hesitate to fight against Hamas militants in Gaza if necessary, he said: "Even against anyone from Fatah who comes out against the law." Arafat heads Fatah, the largest faction in the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Sharon has accused Arafat of fomenting violence in the Palestinian uprising. Arafat denies the allegation.

Sharon's plan envisages uprooting all 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of the 120 enclaves Israel established in the West Bank after capturing both areas in the 1967 Middle East war.

Under a compromise with cabinet hardliners, Sharon put off until March 2005 a vote on the start of the evacuation, which he said he intends to complete by the end of next year.

- REUTERS