Israeli air strike kills eight Gaza militants

GAZA, Apr 8 (Reuters) Israeli airstrikes killed eight Gaza militants today, the latest in what Palestinian leaders called an escalation of violence and which Hamas said aimed to draw international pressure to change its policies.

The latest strike, near the town of Khan Younis, killed six gunmen in a training camp used by the Abu el-Reesh Brigades, which is part of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction and which has often fired rockets into Israel from Gaza.

Abu el-Reesh Brigades spokesman Abu Haron said the group would still train its militants and continue attacking Israel, saying: ''Our war with the occupation is not over. We will not abandon the blood of the martyrs and we will continue the resistance.'' Two militants from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, also part of Fatah, died in a similar Israeli airstrike earlier in the day.

''This Israeli escalation aims to bring the Palestinian people on their knees and to blackmail the government in order to win over political concessions,'' Hamas leader and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told reporters in Gaza.

The deaths raised to 14 the number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli airstrikes in two days.

Haniyeh said his government, formed after the militant group won a parliamentary election in January, would not bow to foreign pressure to recognise Israel and disavow violence despite funding cuts that are pushing the Palestinian Authority to financial collapse.

The United States and the European Commission yesterday suspended direct aid to Haniyeh's new Hamas-led government until it renounced violence, recognised Israel's right to exist and supported internationally backed W Asia peace initiatives.

''We will remain loyal to the rights of our people and we will not give anything that may harm these rights,'' he said.

Israel has also stopped turning over about 50 million dollars a month in taxes and customs revenue it collected on behalf of the Palestinians under previous agreements and its banks have begun cutting ties with the Palestinians.

DIRECT AID Israeli Prime Minister-designate Ehud Olmert, whose centrist Kadima party won a national election on March 28, has said his government would opt to try to transfer the money to the Palestinians without having to go through the Hamas government.

In a Washington Post interview published on its Web site yesterday, Olmert said Israel would ''look for ways to allocate (the money) directly to the population for humanitarian needs''.

''We will not give a cheque to a Palestinian minister of finance, because how can we be certain that it will not be used for terror?'' the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Hamas, a fundamentalist Islamic movement that is sworn to Israel's destruction and has carried out more than 60 suicide bombings since a 2000 uprising, won a sweeping victory in parliamentary elections in January.

Hamas has largely abided by a year-long truce but other militant groups have stepped up rocket attacks from Gaza. Israel has vowed to target militants involved in such attacks and has increased air strikes and artillery shellings in the area.

Yesterday, in the deadliest strike in five months, missiles hit a car leaving a militant training base in the southern Gaza Strip, killing five militants and the 5-year-old son of one of them who came to watch his father train.

Khaled Abu Hilal, a spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in charge of security matters, said he supported calls by Hamas's armed wing to avenge the airstrike.

Despite the aid cuts, the United States said in its announcement in Washington it would boost humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians through UN agencies to avoid widespread economic distress in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Reuters OM VP0305