Israel threatens major Gaza offensive

JERUSALEM - Israel threatened a large- scale offensive in the Gaza Strip and shot dead a Hamas commander yesterday, saying Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had failed to crack down on militants as a truce teetered.

Addressing Israel's cabinet, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he had instructed the army "to act without limitation to stop the strikes on Israeli communities".

Palestinian leaders said a major offensive would be disastrous for Middle East peace prospects and Israel's hopes of a smooth pullout from Gaza settlements, starting next month.

But Gaza militants defied Abbas's call to hold fire and kept up rocket barrages. Family members and Hamas officials said a sniper shot and killed a commander of the Islamic group as he went outside to water the garden. The army confirmed it shot him.

"We are going for a large-scale operation in Gaza," Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Radio, when asked about tanks and troops that massed outside Gaza over the weekend.

"It depends on what evolves over the coming hours. It is a matter of hours. We will not tolerate this barrage," he said.

A decision on an offensive was expected later.

Abbas on Saturday urged Hamas and other militants to halt attacks on Israel and return to a truce seen as key to securing an orderly Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as planned next month. Abbas also blamed Israel for the truce's near-collapse.

Israel has not launched a large-scale offensive into the Gaza Strip since the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat last year raised new hopes for Middle East peacemaking.

Abbas wants to avert Israeli army incursions into Gaza but has to tread carefully against Hamas, committed to destroying Israel, because of its military and political clout.

Two teenagers were killed in the past few days in gunbattles between Hamas and Palestinian police trying to prevent rocket fire, raising fears among Palestinians of civil war.

PALESTINIANS SAY PEACE EFFORTS IN DANGER

A Palestinian official rang alarm bells over Boim's threat.

"If carried out, it would have only disastrous results on the Gaza disengagement's prospects and on the peace process as a whole," senior negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

Israel Radio earlier quoted Boim as saying the offensive could be prevented if Abbas cracked down on militants as required by the US-led peace "road map", but in his broadcast remarks Boim said Israel had no faith in Abbas.

The death of the Hamas commander in Gaza brought to eight the number of the group's fighters killed in the upsurge.

Sharon, who ordered stepped up army action against militants after a suicide bombing and rocket attack killed six Israelis last week, has vowed not to quit Gaza under fire. At least two more rockets fell in Israel on Sunday.

A similar scenario of attack, retaliation and revenge - for which each side always blames the other - put paid to many previous peace efforts.

"Around and around we go. A trap that no one knows how to escape from," said Roni Shaked, commentator in Israel's best selling Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arranged a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories this week to try to keep the Gaza withdrawal on track. Washington sees it as a possible springboard to renewed peace talks.

Israeli officials have said the army might carry out wide-scale raids and reoccupy Palestinian areas near the 21 Jewish settlements to be evacuated.

While welcoming any Israeli withdrawal from occupied land they seek for a state, Palestinians suspect Sharon plans to give them tiny Gaza but cement Israel's hold on the West Bank.

Such fears have been fuelled by Israel's failure to heed the road map's demand for a freeze on settlement expansion in the West Bank, and its building of a vast barrier in the territory.

- REUTERS