Israel vowed on Tuesday to continue targeting members of radical Palestinian groups and carried out more air raids in the Gaza Strip despite a pledge by the factions to cease their attacks. Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz made the announcement on army radio after Israeli troops arrested 82 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members overnight in the West Bank. âYes. The Israeli army will continue to use all means necessary,â said Mofaz, asked whether Israel would continue targeted assassinations and bombing raids on the Islamist stronghold of the Gaza Strip. Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, the head of a committee grouping representatives of the armed Palestinian factions, said the organisations had agreed to stop attacks from Gaza, where Israel ended 38 years of military rule two weeks ago. âAll factions on the steering committee have agreed to stop armed resistance operations from the Gaza Strip to protect the interests of our people,â he said. Naja said the deal - to be formally announced later on Tuesday â would protect Palestinians from a âcatastropheâ at the hands of the Israeli military. Hamas already announced on Sunday it had ordered a halt to rocket attacks from Gaza. A senior source at Islamic Jihad on Tuesday said its armed wing had followed suit.
Israeli air strikes have killed two Hamas and two Jihad militants since Saturday. The spike of violence began after Hamas blamed a blast at a rally in northern Gaza on Israel and began firing a salvo of rockets into the Jewish state. Fifteen Palestinians were killed at the rally in what both Israel and the Palestinian Authority said it was the result of a missile explosion in a Hamas jeep. Overnight, the Israeli air force carried out more raids on Gaza, including on three bridges in the northern Beit Hanun area, which they said militants used to access rocket-firing sites to strike Israel.
Palestinian militants struck back, sending another rocket crashing into southern Israel, the Israeli army said. Israeli media said a second rocket had hit some hours earlier. There were no casualties in any of the incidents. A militant wing of the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rocket, though another spokesman denied this. A Palestinian security official said one person was slightly wounded in a raid on the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, seriously damaging a building used by moneychangers and another by the ruling Fatah party.
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbasâs spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina condemned Israel for trying to destroy hopes of calm following its Gaza pullout and urged the international community to stop targeted killings. âContinued assassinations will explode the entire situation. We are asking the international community, especially the United States, to move immediately and put strong pressure on Israel to stop this,â he said. Mofaz said that even if Hamas had announced an end to the firing of rockets, it was secretly pressing other militant groups to launch attacks. âWe will not allow them to continue with that policy,â he said.