Israel pounds Gaza, threatens to kill Hamas leaders

GAZA, May 21 (Reuters) At least five Palestinians and an Israeli woman were killed today in fresh attacks by both sides and a senior Israeli cabinet minister said all Hamas leaders involved in cross-border rocket fire could be targeted.

''I don't distinguish between those who carry out the (rocket) attacks and those who give the orders. I say we have to put them all in the crosshairs,'' Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said on Israel Radio.

Israel's security cabinet decided yesterday to escalate military action in response to some 150 rockets fired from Gaza since last week. These have caused injuries, although no deaths, and have put political pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

In the latest cross-border attack from Gaza, a rocket fired by Palestinian militants killed a woman in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, the Israeli emergency services ZAKA said. Her death would mark the first casualty of Palestinian rocket attacks in six months.

It followed a Hamas rocket that struck a bakery in the Sderot wounding two people, one of them seriously, according to a police spokesman.

Thousands of Hamas supporters had earlier taken to the streets of Gaza City and gunmen fired into the air, vowing revenge, one day after an Israeli air strike on the home of Hamas politician Khalil al-Hayya.

Hamas said only two of the eight people killed in yesterday's attack were gunmen. Hayya was not injured, though he lost seven family members in the strike.

''We will keep to the same path until we win one of two goals: victory or martyrdom,'' Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, said at the funeral service.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will go to Gaza on Tuesday to speak to leaders about maintaining law and order, following weeks of internal fighting, and perhaps renewing a truce with Israel, Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr said.

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