US says Israel has right to defend against Hamas

WASHINGTON, May 17 (Reuters) The United States said today that 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.

Israeli air strikes today destroyed a Hamas security headquarters and a car carrying one of the group's top commanders.

Israel had threatened a ''severe'' response to cross-border rocket attacks that have persisted despite a troop and settler pullout from Gaza in 2005.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged restraint on all sides but said Israel had the right to respond to rocket attacks from Hamas.

''Israel has the right to defend itself and it has exercised great restraint in the face of these rocket attacks,'' McCormack told reporters.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke earlier to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as well as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about the latest violence pitting Abbas' Fatah movement against Hamas. Israel has also launched deadly air strikes against the Islamists.

''She wanted to talk to them directly and see how they saw the situation,'' said McCormack of the calls Rice made to the two leaders. ''We certainly want to see a reduction or an end to the violence but let's remember how that violence started and it started with these Hamas-led forces,'' he added.

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