4 Gaza militants killed in retaliatory airstrike

[David]

AP


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – An Israeli airstrike killed four Palestinian militants as they were firing mortars at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian officials said, just hours after another group of militants struck Israel in a separate rocket attack.

The violence was the latest in a surge of spiraling clashes that have rocked a 5-month-old truce between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers. Both sides say they would like to preserve the truce, which is due to expire next month, but events over the past two weeks signal the opposite is happening.

The militants killed in the airstrike were from a small Hamas-allied group known as the Popular Resistance Committees. Abu Attaya, a spokesman for the group, said the four were firing mortars when they were killed.

The Israeli military said the airstrike targeted a rocket squad in northern Gaza.

After the strike, dozens of onlookers converged on the bodies of two of the dead men shouting "God is great." They then carried the bodies, one wrapped in a blanket, to a nearby civilian car.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum threatened retaliation. "Today's crime will not pass without punishment," he said.

Palestinians launched two rockets earlier in the day into Israel, hitting near a community on the Israel-Gaza border. No one was hurt, the military said.

According to the Israeli military's count, Palestinians have sent more than 170 rockets and mortars flying at Israel since the violence resumed nearly two weeks ago. Israeli troops have killed 15 militants, and two more died in unclear circumstances. No civilians have been killed on either side.

Israeli leaders signaled they had not given up on the cease-fire. Speaking Sunday ahead of the Israeli Cabinet's weekly meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he had told the military to present plans for "various operations against Hamas' terrorist regime" in Gaza, but gave no timeframe. "We are not eager for battle but we do not fear it," Olmert said.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak also indicated that Israel preferred the cease-fire. "I do not advise anyone to regret a single month of calm and if the other side chooses calm we shall need to seriously consider it," he said.

Israel is keeping its crossings into Gaza shut because of the ongoing rocket fire, barring badly needed goods and fuel from entering the impoverished territory. U.N. food supplies in Gaza have been depleted and the fuel cutoff has led to power shortages.

Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said officials would decide later Sunday whether to reopen them. International pressure to crack open the passages has been mounting.

Hamas took over Gaza in June 2007, and Israel imposed a closure on the strip to weaken the hardline group. Egypt has also kept its border crossing with Gaza closed.

The blockade was relaxed slightly after the truce began last June, but the crossings were slammed shut again because of the new clashes.