Israeli troops blew up what they called a gunpost for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip yesterday, hours before Israeli leaders were to weigh military retaliation for a double suicide bombing on a strategic port.
Vowing no quarter for militants after the attack that killed 10 on Sunday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ruled out peace talks with the Palestinians and pledged to pursue unilateral moves that would deny them land they want for a state.
The two Palestinian bombers blew themselves up at Israel's second-busiest port, Ashdod, just north of the Gaza Strip.
The Jewish state is still trying to work out how they evaded the Gaza Strip's defenses for the first time in more than three years of conflict.
Israeli troops with tanks and bulldozers moved into a Palestinian-run area of the Gaza Strip before dawn to demolish a building the army said was used for a rocket attack on a convoy from the tiny Jewish settlement of Netzarim on Monday.
Medics and witnesses said two Palestinian policemen were wounded when Israeli troops opened fire. The two-storey building was left in rubble. Palestinians said it was a disused college.
Sharon and top ministers were to meet yesterday to weigh retaliation for the Ashdod bombing. Israeli helicopters hit suspected militant targets within hours of the attack. There were no dead.
An Israeli security source said Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz had recommended Israel's traditional retaliatory measures of army raids and the targeted killing of militant leaders in the Gaza Strip.
But Palestinian militants said any retaliation would bring its own counter-strike.
"They long believed the Gaza Strip was a prison. We have shown up from that prison to tell them no walls and no security measures will protect them," said Abu Qusai of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, one of the groups behind the Ashdod attack. "No strategic place will be immune."
Violence has mushroomed in Gaza since Sharon announced plans to remove Jewish settlers as part of go-it-alone moves that would also result in Palestinians losing swathes of land in the West Bank which they also want for a state.
Palestinian militants want to make any Israeli withdrawal from Gaza look like a victory, while the army is determined that it will not go under fire and do all it can to smash militant groups before any pullout.
Sharon reiterated before parliament on Monday that he saw no chance for peace talks with the Palestinians. He broke off contacts to arrange a summit with his Palestinian counterpart after the bombing on Sunday.
The Ashdod attack has amplified fears over the security of Israel's other strategic installations and also raised questions over the value of the controversial barrier Israel is building inside the West Bank for keeping out attackers.
Nearly all the bombers who have killed hundreds of Israelis over the past three years came from the West Bank and Israel says its bulwark of concrete and wire should keep them out.
Palestinians say it will never work and call it an underhand bid to annex land they want for a state.
RSS