Israel launched its first air raid on the Gaza Strip in two months yesterday after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed three people in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, shaking a fragile truce.
No casualties were reported from the strike, which targeted a tunnel near the Karni border post, the main crossing point for goods between the Jewish state and the impoverished coastal territory.
"The intention of the tunnel was to be used in order to carry out a terror attack against Israeli civilians in the immediate future," an army spokesman said.
The strike was the first since a Nov. 26 ceasefire came into effect in Gaza, under which Israel withdrew its troops from the territory and militants were to stop firing rockets into the Jewish state.
It also cast a shadow over tentative moves to revive the stalled Middle East peace process, just days before a summit on the subject.
After Monday's bombing -- the first suicide strike in Israel in nine months and the first ever in Eilat -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to continue a "battle without respite against the terrorists and their commanders."
Olmert was due to meet Defense Minister Amir Peretz and other security officials later yesterday.
But a security source said that Israel did not plan to launch a widescale offensive in the Gaza Strip, the scene of many days of deadly fighting between rival Palestinian factions.
"We intend to keep the ceasefire, but at the same time we will conduct pinpoint strikes against terror activists," the source said.
"This doesn't mean we are launching an operation in Gaza. We have no desire or intention to bring the ceasefire to an end, but we are keeping the right to carry out preventive operations against terrorism," the source said.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas condemned the suicide attack, saying on a trip to Egypt that it was "not in the interest of the Palestinian people and will not affect the ceasefire between the Palestinians and the Israelis."
Israeli officials were still trying to figure out how the 21-year-old bomber managed to infiltrate Eilat in a strike claimed by the radical Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
The bomber blew himself up in a tiny bakery, killing its two co-owners and an employee, and sowing fear in the tourist resort that had previously been regarded as a safe haven.
Palestinian security sources said the family of the bomber had received a warning to leave their Gaza Strip home.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said on Monday that the attacker had reached Eilat -- which is abutted by Jordan and Egypt -- from the neighboring Sinai peninsula.
Islamic Jihad said he had traveled through Jordan, but the claim was denied by Amman.
A security source in Egypt also denied he could have crossed from its territory.
Peretz said he wanted to examine the feasibility of constructing a barrier along Israel's porous 250km border with Egypt.
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Gaza Strip calm as new ceasefire starts
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