Palestinian rockets hit Israeli town, two wounded

JERUSALEM, May 27 (Reuters) Palestinian rockets struck a southern Israeli town today and two people were wounded, a day after Israeli air strikes killed five Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

There was no end in sight to a nearly two-week-old surge in violence in which more than 40 Palestinians, most of them militants, and an Israeli civilian have been killed.

In the latest attack from Gaza, two people were hurt, one of them seriously, when two rockets hit the town of Sderot, medical officials said.

''He was driving a car and it crashed into a wall,'' Sderot resident Eran Vaaknin, describing the moment one of the rockets exploded, said of one of the people hurt in the attack.

Israel pressed ahead with its air offensive in Gaza yesterday, killing the five Hamas men, and detained a Palestinian cabinet minister in the occupied West Bank.

Wasfi Kabha of Hamas was the second cabinet minister seized since Thursday, when Israel detained Education Minister Naser al-Shaer and 32 other officials in the West Bank. Washington voiced misgivings about the detentions but said Israel had a right to defend itself.

The recent surge of violence has dashed hopes for a renewed truce called for by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose secular Fatah group is part of a unity government with Hamas.

More than 220 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza since May 15, the Israeli military said.

''Our message to the Zionist enemy is that you have no future on our land,'' Abu Ubaida al-Jarrah, chief commander of Hamas's Executive Force, said in a broadcast on the militant group's radio station during a funeral for the fighters killed yesterday.

Abbas wants both sides to agree to a ceasefire with Israel as a step towards reviving peace talks. Hamas has resisted his call.

''This aggression will not achieve its goals but it will lead to further escalations that will have dangerous consequences,'' said Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Israeli officials doubt any truce will last if Hamas can continue smuggling arms into Gaza from Egypt.

Although they are partners in government, Hamas and Fatah have fought bitter internal battles in Gaza in recent weeks that have killed some 50 Palestinians, and tension remains high.

REUTERS GT VC1325