Four dead in overnight air strike on Gaza

GAZA, May 18 (Reuters) Four Hamas fighters were killed in an Israeli air strike overnight, taking the death toll among the Palestinian Islamists to seven in the hours since Israel vowed to hit back for Hamas rocket strikes.

In the early hours today, a Hamas base near the Gaza Strip's eastern border with Israel was hit by what local officials said appeared to be at least one missile from an F-16 jet. Fighters had been stationed there to counter any Israeli ground assault after troops and tanks crossed the frontier.

An Israeli army official confirmed the strike against the Hamas stronghold, saying the target was used by Hamas militants as a meeting place to carry out attacks against Israel. The official added that the building was suspected of housing a tunnel used to smuggle weapons and contraband into Israel.

The death of one of seven people initially reported wounded took the number killed to four, hospital and Hamas officials said, making it the deadliest of at least five such air raids.

Four other Palestinians were killed yesterday in continued faction fighting between Hamas and the secular Fatah group of President Mahmoud Abbas - despite a ceasefire agreed late on Wednesday. Some 44 people have died in internal fighting in the past week, some of them unarmed civilians.

There was an uneasy quiet in Gaza early today.

Israeli tanks had yesterday also entered the Gaza Strip, the coastal enclave from which Israel withdrew in 2005. A spokesman called it a ''small force'' on a ''defensive operation'', leaving it unclear whether Israel was shifting its policy of leaving all but the areas closest to the border to Palestinian forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to stand firm on a visit to a border town, Sderot, hit by dozens of rockets in recent days. A US President George W Bush, calling for peace, said he understood Israeli fears of rocket strikes.

RUBBLE Rubble was all that remained of a Gaza City building that housed Hamas's Executive Force, which Fatah wants disbanded. At least 40 people were wounded in that attack alone, hospital officials said.

Israeli artillery was deployed along the Gaza border and residents said tanks were moving towards northern Gaza towns.

Israel said it launched the air strikes in response to cross-border rocket attacks. Hamas accused Israel of colluding with its rival Fatah in a battle for dominance in the territory, which Israeli soldiers and settlers quit two years ago.

Fatah brushed aside Hamas's charges, saying Palestinians must unite in the face of the Israeli onslaught.

In response to the intense air assault, Hamas's armed wing threatened to resume suicide bombings in Israel. A Hamas bomber last struck in Israel in 2004.

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

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 on Thursday 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.

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.

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