Gaza rockets fired at Israel after raid that killed four

JERUSALEM - Islamic Jihad extremists in the Gaza Strip fired more than a dozen rockets at southern Israel early yesterday after Israeli undercover forces killed one of its leaders in the West Bank, shattering a recent lull in Gaza fighting.

The new violence highlighted the fragility of efforts, mediated in part by Egypt, to move Israel and Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers toward an informal truce.

Also ratcheting up tensions were remarks by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at a summit of Muslim nations accusing Israel of implementing policies facilitating an "ethnic cleansing" campaign in the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem.

"Our people in Jerusalem are . . . suffering from a series of decisions like tax hikes and construction prohibitions," Abbas, who controls the West Bank but not Gaza, told the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference in Dakar, Senegal.

He said Palestinians "are facing a campaign of annihilation" by the Israeli state.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Abbas' use of the term

ethnic cleansing

was "probably an example of some overheated political rhetoric."

The Islamic Jihad commander, Mohammed Shehadeh, was buried yesterday in the West Bank town of Bethlehem along with three other gunmen killed in the raid late Wednesday.

A dozen rockets and three mortars were fired at Israel late Wednesday and early yesterday from Gaza, Israeli security officials said. No one was injured. Israeli aircraft struck a loaded rocket launcher in response, but no Palestinian injuries were reported.

The rocket barrage seemed inevitable after Israeli undercover forces opened fire on the car carrying Shehadeh. The Israeli military said the Islamic Jihad commander planned suicide bombings that killed dozens of Israelis.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel would keep pursuing extremists involved in attacks in Israelis.

"Yesterday in Bethlehem we demonstrated once again that the state of Israel will continue to pursue and strike all murderers with Jewish blood on their hands," Barak said.

Israel held Hamas responsible for the rocket attacks because it controls Gaza. "When another group takes responsibility for a rocket launch, they are subcontracting out for Hamas," government spokesman Mark Regev said.

Regev had no comment on an Army Radio report that Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was due in Israel next week to try to advance truce efforts.

Israel has publicly denied that any informal cease-fire is taking shape, though officials have privately acknowledged that Egyptian-brokered attempts are under way.

In Gaza, 3,000 Palestinians marched to protest the Israeli raid in Bethlehem, and Hamas blamed Israel for the spike in violence. Spokesman Abu Obeid vowed retaliation against "all of the Zionist colonies and towns around Gaza."

The latest spiral of violence began just hours after Hamas' prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, called for a period of calm with Israel.

Before the Bethlehem raid, there had been signs Israel and Hamas were moving closer toward a cease-fire, including an ebb in fighting after clashes in previous weeks killed more than 120 people, nearly all of them Palestinians.