Israel steps up shelling, kills one Palestinian

GAZA, Apr 9: Israel shelled two Palestinian security posts in northern Gaza today, killing one person and wounding 14 as the army kept up its heaviest strikes on the strip since Jewish settlers and troops withdrew last year.

Israeli air strikes and artillery barrages have killed 15 Palestinians, mainly militants, since Friday.

Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who won elections last month on pledges to impose final borders with or without Palestinian agreement, said there were no curbs on the army to respond to a surge of militant rocket fire on Israel.

''Anyone who fires a rocket and anyone who participates in terror acts will be dealt with without hesitation,'' Olmert said at the start of a routine cabinet meeting.

Israel has also ratcheted up military strikes on Gaza since the new Palestinian government led by the militant Islamist group Hamas was sworn in on March 29.

Palestinian security sources said one artillery shell landed on a small security base east of the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. Another hit a security position to the south.

One civilian was killed and 14 people, civilians and policemen, were wounded, the sources said.

The Israeli army said the strikes were on sites near Beit Hanoun used by militants to fire makeshift rockets into Israel.

The rockets rarely cause casualties.

An Israeli army spokesman said Palestinian security forces and civilians were warned through leaflets dropped on northern Gaza several days ago to keep away from rocket launch pads.

Palestinian security sources said hundreds of shells were being fired daily at the sites, but also near residential and industrial areas.

While some Palestinians had fled their homes, security forces in the area were ordered to stay at their posts.

Israel has vowed not to negotiate with Hamas unless it recognises the Jewish state's right to exist, renounces violence and accepts interim peace deals.

Hamas, which is sworn to destroy Israel, says talks with the Jewish state would be futile.

POLICY ON PALESTINIAN GOVERNMENT Yesterday senior Israeli ministers will work out detailed guidelines on how to deal with the Palestinians in the wake of Hamas assuming power.

The guidelines are expected to allow Israel to talk to the Palestinians through the office of President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate who favours a two-state solution to end the conflict, or with low-level bureaucrats in the Palestinian Authority.

Olmert's centrist Kadima party will also start formal negotiations on Sunday to build a coalition government.

The militant rocket attacks and Israeli shelling have underscored the dashed hopes that Israel's pullout of settlers and troops from Gaza in August and September last year after 38 years of occupation would lead to renewed peacemaking.

Expectations Gaza's impoverished economy might undergo a revival have also foundered, with Israeli closures of crossings into the strip hurting business and worsening food shortages.

Israel says it shuts the crossings because of security threats.

Israel, the United States and the European Commission have suspended direct funding to the new Hamas-led government until it recognises Israel and halts violence.

On Saturday, eight Palestinian militants were killed in two separate air strikes. The army also killed five militants and the five-year-old son of one of them in a strike on a car leaving a militant training base in southern Gaza on Friday.

REUTERS