Hamas fires rockets on Israeli city

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas extremists bombarded a major southern Israeli city with rocket fire yesterday, unleashing their most powerful weapons yet in a week of tit-for-tat fighting that threatens to destroy a five-month-old cease-fire.

Both Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers held out hope the calm would be restored, and Israeli leaders decided against any immediate major military action in retaliation. But the sides also vowed to strike hard at each other if violence persisted.

"If you want to leave the truce, we are ready," Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said in a sermon yesterday. "And if you want to continue it, then abide by it."

The truce took effect in June, largely halting a cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel and deadly Israel reprisals.

The cease-fire has mostly held, but it began to deteriorate last week after an Israeli military raid on what the army said was a tunnel that extremists planned to use for a cross-border raid. Eleven extremists have been killed, and Palestinians have fired 140 rockets and mortars from Gaza at Israel.

Israel also has shut Gaza's vital border crossings, blocking the entrance of food, humanitarian goods and fuel into the impoverished area. About 750,000 people in Gaza - just over half the territory's population - rely on the United Nations for food.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "concerned that food and other life-saving assistance is being denied to hundreds of thousands of people . . . and should cease immediately."

Yesterday's rocket barrage was one of the heaviest yet. Nearly 20 rockets were fired into southern Israel, including four Grad-type Katyushas that landed in Ashkelon, 17 miles north of Gaza. One woman in the southern Israeli town of Sderot was slightly injured by shrapnel, the army said.

It was the first time that rockets have reached Ashkelon in the current round of fighting. With 120,000 people, Ashkelon is the biggest population center in rocket range, and Israel has responded harshly to past attacks on the coastal city.

But Israeli defense officials said the government had decided against any major military action for the time being unless the situation deteriorated.

"We will keep protecting our soldiers and people and keep acting against attempts to interrupt the cease-fire," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak responded, "but if the other side will want or wish to keep the cease-fire alive, we'll consider it seriously."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held an emergency meeting with Barak and other top security officials to discuss the situation. Afterward, Olmert indicated the border crossings would remain closed and military action would continue if necessary.