Israel threatens to target Hamas political leaders

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, travelled from his West Bank headquarters to Gaza, for talks with the Islamic militant group's leadership in a last-ditch attempt to salvage a truce with Israel and to rein in factional bloodletting that has raged between Hamas and his Fatah movement.

Fatah officials said Abbas would meet Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of Hamas, but would not divulge the timing or location, citing security concerns.

Israeli aircraft struck two camps used by Hamas on Tuesday, a day after a Palestinian rocket attack killed a woman in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

Israeli leaders suggested that even Haniyeh could be targeted, with Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh official calling Hamas' leaders "terrorists in suits" in a radio interview.

"We don't care if he's a ring leader, a perpetrator of rocket launching or if he is one of the political leaders," Sneh later told The Associated Press. "No one has immunity."

Despite Israeli vows of harsh retaliation in response to last 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 from launching a major ground offensive into Gaza in order to give diplomacy a chance to defuse the crisis, Peretz's office said.

Abbas himself is seen as a potential target of Hamas, which has been locked in factional fighting with his Fatah movement.

Eyewitnesses said he entered the strip this 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.

Wary of Israeli strikes, leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza have lowered their profiles, turning off cell 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."

He did not elaborate.

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.

But Israel's high-tech military has not been able to find a solution for countering the crude rockets. Over the past week, more than 150 rockets have landed in and around Sderot, a town of 24,000 near the Gaza border.

Seven rockets were fired today, lightly wounding two people, the army said. Israel responded with four airstrikes, targeting two suspected arms caches and two Hamas bases. Palestinian officials said seven people were wounded.

The 31-year-old Sderot woman was the first Israeli killed by a Palestinian rocket since November.

The government today evacuated hundreds of Sderot residents to hotels in other parts of the country for the Shavuot Jewish holiday, which began at sundown.

The evacuation was orderly, and Israeli soldiers helped people board the buses, shouting instructions through megaphones.

Mechi Friederwitzer-Fendell, who immigrated to Israel from New York City in 2000 and has raised seven children in Sderot, said she is staying put, but she called on the government to get tougher still with the Palestinians.

"Maybe we should knock down some houses," she said. "They fire a missile and we destroy a few houses, let them realize that we can't stand for this."

Hamas' rocket attacks apparently have been aimed at triggering an Israel response and ending the Palestinian infighting, which killed some 50 people last week.

Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official, said that the group would consider talks on a ceasefire, if Israel first stopped its "mad attacks".

"The aggression must stop so we can talk about a comprehensive cease-fire," said Youssef, a top aide to Haniyeh. "The government is working on expanding the truce. This is a national interest."

However, Israel dismissed talk of a new ceasefire, saying Hamas never sticks to truces.

"Hamas ... is leading the violence," Peretz said Tuesday before meeting Solana in Jerusalem. "We don't intend on stopping. We will stop at the point that the rockets stop."

Solana said he would head to the Gaza Strip in the coming days.