Israel orders stepped up Gaza action, hits PM's office

GAZA, July 2: Israel's prime minister today said, he had ordered the army to ''intensify'' operations in Gaza to free a captured soldier after aircraft attacked the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

The pre-dawn strike on Haniyeh's empty office in the Gaza Strip followed warnings from Israel that no one in the Hamas-led government was immune from attack.

''I have given instructions to intensify the strength of action by the army and security services, to hunt down these terrorists, those who send them ... and those who harbour them,'' the Israeli leader, Ehud Olmert, said at a cabinet meeting.

''I have said, and will repeat, nobody will be immune.'' Hamas' armed wing responded to the helicopter missile strike on Haniyeh's office by threatening to attack Israeli power plants, institutions and schools if Israel carried out more air strikes against government offices and infrastructure.

Israel, which pulled out of the Gaza Strip last year, sent troops and tanks into the south of the territory on Wednesday after Palestinian gunmen, some from the Hamas armed wing, seized Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid a week ago.

It has kept on hold a threatened push into northern Gaza.

Internal security chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that the crisis might take months to resolve.

''We have to take a deep breath ... There is no magic solution,'' said Diskin, head of the Shin Bet.

Surveying his wrecked office, Haniyeh found shattered furniture and windows, and a portrait of late president Yasser Arafat blown off the wall.

''This is the policy of the jungle and arrogance,'' Haniyeh told Reuters. ''Nothing will affect our spirit and nothing will affect our steadfastness.''

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction was defeated by Hamas in a January election, condemned the attack. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called it ''inadvisable''. One Hamas member was killed in a second Israeli attack on an office used by forces loyal to the Islamic militant group, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction. There have been few casualties in the overall Israeli operation so far.

DEADLOCK

Palestinian officials said Egyptian-led diplomatic efforts to free Shalit were continuing but making little progress because of Israel's Gaza assault.

''I'm not hopeful,'' senior Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said.

A Palestinian official has quoted mediators as saying 19-year-old Shalit was alive after being treated for wounds.

Olmert ordered the armed forces ''to make sure no one sleeps at night in Gaza'', Israeli Interior Minister Roni Bar-On told Israel Radio.

A UN official said widening an Israeli offensive to the northern Gaza Strip, where militants have been launching rockets at Israel, could displace up to 25,000 Palestinians.

With a Palestinian humanitarian crisis looming and under international pressure, Israel reopened Karni, the main commercial crossing into the Gaza Strip. Israel, which had said Gaza's borders would be sealed indefinitely after Shalit was abducted, opened fuel pipelines.

After Shalit's abduction, Israel launched air strikes against Gaza's main power plant and road bridges.

It also detained eight members of the Hamas cabinet and nearly two dozen lawmakers in the occupied West Bank.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon said they would soon be tried for membership of Hamas, which Israel regards as a terrorist organisation.

Hamas's armed wing warned Israel to end its offensive.

''If the occupation continues aggression and terrorism ... it will drag the region into a sea of blood and the consequences will be terrible,'' said Abu Ubaida, a spokesman.

Hamas has carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.

REUTERS