Palestinian president arrives in Gaza

There were no casualities but Israel responded instantly, with a helicopter gunship strafing the launch site and wounding three people.

Palestinians could not say if they were firing rockets at the time.

Israel’s deputy defence minister threatened yesterday to target Hamas political leaders, calling them “terrorists in suits” after a rocket attack by the Islamic militant group killed an Israeli woman.

The harsh words were backed up by action.

Israel airstrikes yesterday and early today targeted four suspected arms caches and three other Hamas facilities across Gaza.

Palestinian officials said a total of 16 people were wounded,among them a pregnant woman and a teenage boy living next to the site of a strike in the early hours of today on an unoccupied building in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, who were hurt by blast and flying shrapel.

An Israeli military statement said the target was a Hamas arms dump and that “secondary explosions were identified” an apparent reference to exploding ordnance.

The 31-year-old woman who died on Monday night was the first Israeli killed by a Palestinian rocket since November, inviting a harsh response.

Militants fired nine more rockets at Israel yesterday, slightly wounding two people, the army said.

Israeli leaders suggested that even Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas could be targeted in reprisals, with Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh calling Hamas’ leaders “terrorists in suits” in a radio interview.

“We don’t care if he’s a ringleader, a perpetrator of rocket launching or if he is one of the political leaders,” Sneh later said. “No one has immunity.”

Wary of Israeli strikes, leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza have lowered their profiles, turning off mobile phones and staying off the streets.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri threatened harsh retaliation if the group’s leaders were attacked.

“Harming ... any of Hamas’ leadership will cost the occupation dearly,” he said. “This will mean responses.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of the moderate Fatah, travelled from his West Bank headquarters to Gaza for talks with Hamas leadership in a last-ditch attempt to salvage a truce with Israel and rein in factional bloodletting between the two factions.

Abbas himself is seen as a potential target of Hamas.

Witnesses said he entered the strip yesterday evening in a motorcade of dozens of vehicles bristling with armed guards, while presidential security forces locked down central Gaza thoroughfares and marksmen staked out rooftop vantage points along the route to his seafront official residence.

Fatah officials said Abbas would meet Haniyeh but would not divulge the timing or location, citing security concerns.

After a six-month lull, Israel resumed airstrikes on militant targets in Gaza last Wednesday in response to heavy rocket fire. More than 40 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed.

Despite Israeli vows of harsh retaliation in response to Monday night’s Sderot attack, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged there is no quick solution for the rocket barrages.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz told visiting European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana that Israel was holding off on launching a major ground offensive into Gaza in order to give diplomacy a chance to defuse the crisis, Peretz’s office said.

Hamas’ rocket attacks apparently have been aimed at triggering an Israel response that could unite Palestinians and end the infighting. Some 50 people were killed in the factional violence last week.

Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official, said the group would consider talks on a cease-fire, if Israel first stopped its “mad attacks”.

Israel dismissed talk of a new cease-fire, saying Hamas never sticks to truces.