Israel vows to get tough with militants

JERUSALEM - Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has ordered the army to use "all necessary means" to strike at Gaza militants firing mortars and rockets, as a shaky, three-month-old truce threatened to unravel.

But security sources said any response to Palestinian attacks would be measured to avoid a serious escalation in the Gaza Strip that could complicate a planned Israeli withdrawal from the occupied coastal territory in mid-August.

Mofaz's orders followed the worst day of fighting in Gaza since the sides declared a de facto ceasefire in February. Israel on Wednesday launched its first air strike in months in response to Palestinian mortar attacks on Jewish settlements.

The latest flareup reflected the fragility of a truce that has sharply reduced the level of violence but has not silenced the guns.

Mofaz gave the army a freer hand to deter Palestinian fire, which continued for a second day with three makeshift rockets hitting southern Israel but causing no damage or casualties.

Since the truce, the army has been under strict orders to hold its fire without authorisation from senior officials.

Security sources said the new rules enabled tougher action, including further air strikes, but were also intended to pressure the Palestinian Authority to rein in the militant Islamic group Hamas.

A Hamas man was killed on Wednesday in a missile strike on a cell firing mortars at nearby settlements. A second Hamas fighter was killed under disputed circumstances. One settler was slightly wounded in a mortar attack.

Mofaz told a meeting of military chiefs yesterday that they should "use all necessary means to prevent any attempt to fire (at Israeli targets)", a senior security source said.

"Israel must respond with greater forcefulness than before," Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Radio. "It is inconceivable that we will carry out an evacuation (of Gaza) under (Palestinian) fire".

SHARON UNDER PRESSURE

With far-right opponents of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout plan stepping up protests, he can ill afford to allow militants to claim they are chasing the Israelis out of Gaza when all 21 settlements there are removed.

Settlers and their political allies, many of whom see Gaza and the West Bank as theirs by biblical birthright, have cited the latest violence as proof that any withdrawal from occupied land "rewards Palestinian terror".

Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction but still officially committed to the truce, said the continued bombardment yesterday was meant "not to break the calm but to respond to Zionist violations" and avenge the deaths of its two fighters.

But Israeli officials see the timing of Hamas's actions as a blunt message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that it is a force to be reckoned with politically as well as militarily and has a major role in calling the shots with Israel.

International mediators see the de facto truce engineered by Abbas as a crucial step towards restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after 4-1/2 years of bloodshed.

Friction between Hamas and Abbas's ruling Fatah faction increased on Tuesday when a Palestinian court threw out voting results from parts of Rafah, the large south Gaza town where the Islamic group swept to victory in a local election this month.

Fatah, a mainstream faction committed to a two-state solution with Israel, captured 50 of 84 municipal councils in the West Bank and Gaza in the May 5 ballot but Hamas showed itself a potent political force by winning 30 councils, including a number of major urban centres.

That has raised concern that Hamas, the driving force behind suicide bombings against Israel during a Palestinian uprising, could do well in parliamentary elections tentatively set for July and pose problems for Abbas's peace efforts.

- REUTERS