A destroyed Palestinian Authority armored vehicle is removed from a Gaza City street after clashes between Hamas militants and the Palestinian security, 15 July 2005 (EPA)
GAZA (Reuters) – Israel launched fresh missile strikes in Gaza early on Saturday, a day after it killed six Hamas militants, and vowed to keep targeting gunmen to prevent rocket attacks ahead of its withdrawal from Gaza next month.
The latest air raid injured two Palestinian bystanders and destroyed three workshops in Gaza City and the Khan Younis refugee camp, which the army said was used by Hamas to produce weapons. Palestinians denied weapons were produced there.
Militants hit back on Saturday morning, firing two rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, near the Gaza Strip. One of the rockets slammed into the courtyard of a house but nobody was hurt, the army said. The other landed in an empty field.
A flare-up of violence in Gaza and the West Bank, which began on Tuesday when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five people in an attack in the coastal town of Netanya, has badly undermined a cessation to hostilities declared by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in February.
On Friday, Hamas militants fought Palestinian police who raided rocket launching sites to stop further attacks. Militants fired machine guns, hurled grenades and torched four police vehicles.
Fighting raged early on Friday in Gaza”s Zeitoun district, a Hamas stronghold, pitting Palestinian security forces in armoured vehicles against militants firing anti-tank weapons.
Hospital sources said the two dead were unarmed teenagers.
Before the gunbattles subsided, more than a dozen people were wounded, six of them members of security forces and the rest civilians, some of whom were caught in the crossfire.
Families of the casualties were outraged. Armed relatives fired shots inside Shifa hospital before police restored order.
The fighting was the worst among Palestinians since the mid-1990s when police killed more than a dozen protesters in clashes with stone-throwers outside a Hamas-stronghold mosque.
Abbas, who had been in Gaza trying to persuade militants to stick to their pledge of calm, had been reluctant until now to confront armed groups despite demands from Israel and the United States. He coaxed militants into a ceasefire in February.
Israel voiced impatience after the latest rocket fire.
"Until they take real steps to dismantle terrorist infrastructure … we will feel free to take whatever action is necessary to stop these attacks," Sharon adviser Raanan Gissin said. It has also raised the prospect of a disruption to Israel”s planned pullout of 8,500 settlers from occupied Gaza next month which had stirred new hopes of reviving Middle East peace.
One Israeli woman has been killed and two others wounded in rocket barrages on Israeli towns and villages near Gaza over the past two days. The Israeli army said since Thursday militants have fired 25 rockets and 52 mortars.
Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Yousef said the Israeli missile strikes were unjustified and would create more tension. He added that the Palestinian leadership was trying to salvage the truce which he said no faction had the right to end.
Faced with a collapsing truce, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arranged an unscheduled visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories next week to "encourage both sides to take appropriate seps to restore order," a spokesman said.
"They need to make (a) maximum effort … both individually and working together, to ensure that this withdrawal is a successful withdrawal," said a State Department spokesman.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said the army would put a stop to rocket barrages and attacks by Gaza militants ahead of the withdrawal which is scheduled to begin in mid-August with the evacuation of all 21 settlements in Gaza.
Israeli military officials have said in the past they would carry out wide-scale raids and possibly reoccupy Palestinian areas near the settlements due to be evacuated to prevent the withdrawal from taking place under fire.
Israel massed several military vehicles around Gaza late on Friday and news reports quoted security sources as saying the Jewish state might raid militant strongholds in the area in the coming days to try to stop rocket launchers.
"The pullout can not commence under fire," Sharon told Channel 2 television in an interview on Friday night.
On Friday, an Israeli missile killed a Hamas militant in the West Bank and troops shot dead his comrade after he escaped and fired at them. A second raid killed four gunmen in a car in Gaza, which Hamas officials said carried makeshift rockets.
Hamas, sworn to Israel”s destruction, has warned that the air strikes would "open the doors of hell" on Israel and said it was reconsidering its commitment to honouring the truce.
The Israeli army also arrested 26 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants across the West Bank in one of the largest arrest operations since the de facto ceasefire was declared.
A Palestinian Authority armored vehicle is burning during clashes between Hamas militants and Palestinian security in the streets of Gaza City where two Palestinian youths were killed and at least 16 people were injured, 15 July 2005 (EPA)
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas attends Friday prayers in Gaza Mosque, 15 July 2005 (REUTERS)