Israeli air strikes target Hamas in Gaza

GAZA, May 17 (Reuters) Israel launched air strikes in Gaza today against a Hamas security force, killing at least two militants after six days of fierce fighting between Palestinians verging on civil war.

Smoke rose in downtown Gaza from what remained of the office building that housed Hamas's Executive Force, which Fatah wants disbanded. Hospital officials said at least 40 people were wounded in the air strike on the multi-storey structure.

The Israeli military said it was responding to cross-border rocket attacks. Hamas accused Israel of colluding with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement in a battle for dominance in the territory that Israeli soldiers and settlers quit two years ago.

''We have had enough. Israel will take all defensive measures to protect our citizens from these Hamas rockets,'' Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said before the air strikes.

Hamas's armed wing threatened to resume suicide bombings in Israel after the Gaza attack levelled the multi-storey concrete structure. A Hamas bomber last struck in Israel in 2004.

About two hours after the attack on the office building, another air strike targeted a car carrying a senior commander in Hamas's armed wing. He was seriously wounded and another militant in the vehicle was killed.

A third air attack was aimed at an Executive Force position outside the home of the Interior Ministry's spokesman. A Hamas fighter was killed.

At least two Israelis were lightly wounded earlier by rocket salvoes in the southern town of Sderot, near the Gaza border.

Despite a ceasefire deal brokered by Abbas and Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal, three Palestinians were killed in renewed internal fighting today, raising the death toll since Friday to at least 43.

Hamas said Fatah security forces attacked the home of Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader and a former foreign minister. There was no immediate comment from Fatah or reports of casualties.

The Israeli army has denied its attacks were connected to the factional violence.

''HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY'' The Gaza violence has worsened conditions for Palestinians hard hit by Western sanctions against the Hamas-led government. Olmert has ruled out serious peace talks so long as the government refuses to recognise Israel and renounce violence.

Abbas called off plans to travel to Gaza today for crisis talks with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. It was unclear how the Hamas-Fatah unity government would survive and function given the mounting violence and resentment.

Israel's air strikes came a day after it hit an Executive Force building in southern Gaza and a rocket launching crew, killing five people.

The Israeli government had earlier threatened a ''severe'' response to rocket attacks on Israel.

Israeli artillery deployed along the Gaza border and a few tanks were seen moving several metres (yards) into the territory. Israeli forces recently completed training for a possible ground invasion of Gaza.

Olmert, struggling to stay in office after an official report sharply criticised his handling of last year's war in Lebanon, is under heavy domestic pressure to stop the rockets without getting bogged down in another inconclusive conflict.

At the same time, he knows a wide-ranging Israeli military response in Gaza could have a major influence on the course of Fatah's power struggle with Hamas.

The United States said Israel had the right to defend itself against rocket attacks from the militant Palestinian group Hamas and praised the Jewish state for ''great restraint'' in recent days.

Reuters PB DB2144