Israeli aircraft hit Gaza after PM warns Hamas leaders

Israel said it fired a missile into a building used by militants, Fatah said it was the office of a charity. Picture / Reuters.

GAZA - Israeli helicopter gunships have struck targets in the Gaza Strip after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the army to step up operations to free an abducted soldier.

Olmert also warned leaders of the Hamas-led Palestinian government that any of them could be targets for attack.

Early on Monday morning local time a helicopter fired a missile into a building in Gaza City that the army said was used by militants. The ruling Hamas movement also has an office there, witnesses said.

The Fatah movement of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas said the office that was hit was a charity. It was unclear if there were casualties. Witnesses also reported two missiles landed in open areas in northern Gaza, near the town of Beit Lahiya.

Olmert's threats came after Israeli aircraft carried out a pre-dawn missile strike on the empty office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Sunday.

"I have given instructions to intensify the strength of action by the army and security services, to hunt down these terrorists, those who send them ... and those who harbour them," Olmert said at a cabinet meeting on Sunday.

"I have said, and will repeat, nobody will be immune."

Israel, which pulled out of the Gaza Strip last year, sent troops and tanks into the south of the territory last Wednesday after Palestinian gunmen, some from Hamas's armed wing, seized Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid a week ago.

It has kept on hold a threatened push into northern Gaza. The crisis has pushed Israeli-Palestinian ties to new lows and piled pressure on the Palestinian government, already on the brink of financial collapse from a US-led aid embargo.

Hamas' armed wing responded to the helicopter strike on Haniyeh's office by threatening attacks inside Israel.

Some Palestinian officials said Egyptian-led efforts to free Shalit were foundering because of Israel's Gaza assault.

One official with knowledge of the talks said mediators would suspend their involvement on Monday night if Hamas did not show more flexibility. Another said no deadline had been issued.

"The situation is so complex now that I'm hoping against hope that it will have a peaceful end," said Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas.

A Palestinian official has quoted mediators as saying 19-year-old Shalit was alive after being treated for wounds.

After Shalit's abduction, Israel launched air strikes against Gaza's main power plant and road bridges.

Israel has also detained a third of the cabinet and nearly two dozen Hamas lawmakers in the West Bank, and forced many other officials into hiding.

Israel's internal security chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that the crisis might take months to resolve. In fresh violence, Israeli soldiers shot dead three gunmen who approached the forces stationed in southern Gaza late on Sunday, Palestinian medics and the Israeli army said.

That brings to at least five the number of militants killed so far in the overall operation.

- REUTERS