Gaza City, Gaza Strip – Israel launched a “crushing” retaliation Saturday against Hamas in the Gaza Strip with deadly airstrikes and troops massed at the border, after militants fired 35 rockets at Israeli towns – their first major attack since the Gaza pullout.
The escalation threatened to derail a shaky 7-month-old truce and squashed hopes that Israel’s ceding the coastal strip to the Palestinians would invigorate peacemaking.
Israel’s reprisals drew fresh Hamas threats of vengeance, and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas came under growing Israeli pressure to confront the militants.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told security chiefs in a meeting that “the ground of Gaza should shake” and that he wanted to exact a high price from Palestinians everywhere, not just Hamas.
He promised a “crushing” response, including airstrikes, targeted killings and arrest raids, participants said afterward. A large-scale ground operation was seen as a last resort, after Israel won international praise for leaving Gaza just two weeks ago.
Israel also sealed the West Bank and Gaza, barring thousands of Palestinians from reaching jobs in the Jewish state.
The crisis erupted on the eve of a major challenge to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s leadership in his hardline Likud Party and could strengthen the hand of Sharon’s main rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned the Gaza pullout endangered Israel.
A Likud vote Monday could determine whether Sharon quits the party – a move that would likely bring early elections and prompt him to form a new centrist party to capture mainstream voters. On Saturday evening, Sharon convened senior Cabinet ministers to approve Mofaz’s proposed military operations.
The heightened violence followed a chain of events starting Friday afternoon with an explosion at a Hamas rally in Gaza’s crowded Jebaliya refugee camp. At least 15 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded.
Hamas blamed Israel, claiming aircraft fired missiles into the crowd, and said its rocket attacks on Israeli towns were retaliation. Israel denied involvement, and the Palestinian Authority held the Islamic militants responsible, saying they apparently mishandled explosives at the rally.
In a speech Saturday, Abbas also blamed Hamas and renewed demands that armed groups stop flaunting weapons in public.
Islamic militants took center stage in Gaza after Israel’s withdrawal, holding large military-style victory parades with displays of arms. Many Palestinians endorsed the militants’ claim that they drove Israel out by force.
But the latest bloodshed appeared to put Hamas on the defensive.
The group called Abbas’ position “a stab in the back of the martyrs” and a blow to efforts to work out differences between militant factions. Abbas has been trying to co-opt Hamas, mainly through the lure of parliament elections, and has rejected calls by Israel and the international community to confront and disarm militants.
In a nod to Hamas, Abbas reiterated Saturday that elections would be held in January as scheduled and that he would not let outsiders dictate who can participate. Israel has demanded that Hamas be barred.
Under an informal agreement between Abbas and the militants, a ban on displaying weapons was to take effect later Saturday, though it was unclear whether Hamas would honor the deal after the Israeli strikes.
On Saturday afternoon, Israeli aircraft fired five missiles at two cars carrying Hamas militants in Gaza City, killing at least two militants and wounding nine people, officials said. Other officials put the death toll at four.
The strikes meant Israel has resumed targeted killings of Palestinian militants, a practice suspended during the truce.
During more than four years of fighting, Israel has killed scores of militants and bystanders in such attacks.
Hamas identified two of the dead as Nafez Abu Hussein and Rwad Farhad, local field commanders. Several hundred gunmen, some firing into the air, joined a funeral procession for Farhad, who was 17.
Farhad’s mother, known as Um Nidal, said all three of her sons have been killed in fighting with the Israelis. “I am so proud,” she said. “I wish I had more sons to offer.”
