Israel launched a second air strike on Hamas militants in Gaza on Friday and the Islamist group’s fighters again clashed with Palestinian rivals on the streets.
A Palestinian hospital official said at least one man was killed and others were wounded when Israeli helicopter gunships fired on them after they launched a rocket into Israel, the latest of about 100 such missiles fired in the past week.
The Israeli military said it attacked the rocket crew in the northern Gaza Strip and that eight improvised Qassam missiles had struck Israel on Friday morning alone. One hit a house in the town of Sderot. Medics said there were only minor injuries.
In the early hours, four Hamas fighters were killed when their base near the Gaza Strip’s eastern border with Israel was hit by what local officials said appeared to be at least one missile from an F-16 jet.
An Israeli army official said the target was suspected of housing a tunnel used to smuggle weapons into Israel.
As the day warmed, a gun battle also raged in the streets of Gaza City, centre of the densely packed coastal enclave of 1,5-million. Thirty-six hours after their leaders declared a ceasefire, gunmen from Hamas fought their secular rivals from President Mahmoud Abbas’s long-dominant Fatah movement.
Three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the pro-Hamas Islamic University campus, witnesses said.
Since the first clashes a week ago, which have jeopardised the two-month-old Hamas-led national unity government, more than 40 Palestinians have been killed in factional fighting.
‘Small force’
Israeli tanks had on Thursday also entered the Gaza Strip, from which Israel withdrew in 2005. A spokesperson called it a ”small force” on a ”defensive operation”, leaving it unclear whether Israel was shifting its policy of leaving all but the areas closest to the border to Palestinian forces.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to stand firm on a visit to a border town, Sderot, hit by dozens of rockets in recent days. United States President George Bush, calling for peace, said he understood Israeli fears of rocket strikes.
Israeli artillery was deployed along the Gaza border and residents said tanks were moving towards northern Gaza towns.
Israel said it launched the air strikes in response to cross-border rocket attacks. Hamas accused Israel of colluding with its rival Fatah in a battle for dominance in the territory, which Israeli soldiers and settlers quit two years ago.
Fatah brushed aside Hamas’s charges, saying Palestinians must unite in the face of the Israeli onslaught.
In response to the intense air assault, Hamas’s armed wing threatened to resume suicide bombings in Israel. A Hamas bomber last struck in Israel in 2004.
The Israeli army denied its air attacks were connected to the factional violence.
The Gaza violence has worsened conditions for Palestinians hard-hit by Western sanctions against the Hamas-led government. Olmert has ruled out serious peace talks so long as the government refuses to recognise Israel and renounce violence.
Abbas called off plans to travel to Gaza on Thursday for crisis talks with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. It was unclear how the Hamas-Fatah unity government would survive and function given the mounting violence and resentment.
Olmert, struggling to stay in office after an official report sharply criticised his handling of last year’s war in Lebanon, is under heavy domestic pressure to stop the rockets without getting bogged down in another inconclusive conflict.
At the same time, he knows a wide-ranging Israeli military response in Gaza could have a major influence on the course of Fatah’s power struggle with Hamas. – Reuters