Israel kills four in Gaza, steps up threats to Syria

Palestinians search the rubble of two destroyed apartment buildings in the Khan Younis refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip. Two apartment buildings were destroyed in an Israeli army operation at the refugee camp on Thursday. PHOTO: EPA

This week's suicide attack in southern Israel has sparked a war of words between Israel and Syria and increased pressure to finish the West Bank barrier that many Israelis believe saves lives, regardless of international condemnation. Also Thursday, four Palestinians were killed in a Gaza town in clashes after Israeli forces found a tunnel leading to a Jewish settlement.

As Israel mourned its 16 dead from Tuesday's twin bus bombings in Beersheba claimed by Hamas militants, officials ratcheted up their rhetoric against Syria, hinting at possible military action.

Syria and Hamas, apparently fearful of an Israeli strike, accused Israel of trying to aggravate tensions in the Middle East.

Although no Israeli strike appeared imminent -- security officials haven't even begun discussing the possibility -- the heated rhetoric underscored Israel's growing impatience with Syrian support for Palestinian militants.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Israeli president that Tuesday's bus bombings -- the deadliest attack in Israel in nearly a year -- were carried out on direct orders from Hamas leaders in Damascus, the Syrian capital.

A senior adviser to Sharon, Raanan Gissin, warned that neither Hamas nor Syria, which is now home to the Hamas top leadership, are "immune" to an Israeli strike.

And Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom warned that Syria's support for terrorists "will have very clear consequences."

However, the chief of Israeli military intelligence, in an interview with Channel 10 TV, refused to draw a straight line from Beersheba to Syria.

"We did not directly connect the terror attack that was carried out in Beersheba to the [Hamas] headquarters in Damascus," Major General Aharon Zeevi-Farkash said, while adding that there is "wide and comprehensive support from Damascus" for militants in the West Bank and Gaza.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa was quoted as saying the threats would "worsen the already aggravated situation in the region." Ahmed Haj Ali, an adviser to the Syrian information minister, said Syria is taking the Israeli threats "seriously."

Hamas issued its own statement from Damascus, accusing Israel of trying to provoke a confrontation and insisting that its actions against Israelis are planned and executed from the Palestinian territories, not Syria.

Israel last struck a target inside Syria on Oct. 5, 2003, when its planes bombed a training camp belonging to Islamic Jihad outside Damascus.

Israel's most obvious target in Syria today would be Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997.

Israel has held Syria partly responsible for years of Hezbollah raids from Lebanon, where Syria maintains a large military presence. In practice, however, Israel has been hesitant to clash with Syria, and the border has been calm for decades.

Analyst Efraim Halevy, a former Mossad intelligence chief and diplomat, said if there is further violence traced to Syria, "I don't think Israel will necessarily play the game the way it's been playing it up to now."