Agence France-Presse,
Israel bombed Hamas targets in Gaza early Friday as security forces loyal to Fatah accused the Islamist group of plotting to assassinate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
Israeli aircraft launched a series of air strikes against Hamas targets, including the headquarters of a paramilitary force, killing at least 10 people, in response to rocket attacks by the Islamist movement on Israeli territory.
But Abbas called off a trip to Gaza for talks on a full ceasefire between fighters from his Fatah party and Hamas after clashes that have left nearly 50 dead and 100 wounded since Sunday over an alleged Hamas plot to murder him.
“Abu Mazen's (Abbas's) visit to Gaza was cancelled after the discovery of a tunnel under Salaheddine Road full of explosives placed by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades to blow up (his) convoy,” said a senior security official, referring to Hamas's military wing.
“The explosives were found on the route that Abu Mazen takes to travel to Gaza,” the source added, speaking from Ramallah in the West Bank.
An official in Abbas's office confirmed the report but Abu Obeida, spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, told AFP: “These reports are aimed at poisoning the atmosphere in Gaza. We deny them completely.”
Earlier, a source close to Abbas told AFP that he would not go to Gaza until he was sure Hamas was firmly committed to the latest truce, which had already given way to fighting.
As the crisis between the rival Palestinian factions worsened, Israeli aircraft pummelled Hamas targets, with the first of six strikes hitting the headquarters of a paramilitary force, killing one person and wounding 30.
Barely two hours later, a Hamas fighter was killed when Israeli aircraft fired on a car in Gaza City.
A house was targeted in another strike that left another Hamas militant dead while a fourth strike on a car in the Sufa area, one of the crossing points between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip, killed two brothers aged 14 and 16. Their 17-year-old sister was gravely wounded.
A fifth air strike killed a militant preparing to fire a rocket into Israel, an army spokesman said.
A sixth strike in the early hours of Friday killed four people and wounded another four in Gaza City, according to Palestinian medics. Witnesses said the four killed were Hamas members.
About 15 Israeli tanks also advanced across the border into Gaza near the former settlement of Dugit, a Palestinian security official said.
An Israeli military spokesman said only that “some tanks entered the northern Gaza Strip in a defensive move, without going far from the barrier” separating the territory from Israel.
The army also deployed a battery of 155mm artillery facing the Gaza Strip.
Israel's actions threatened to further exacerbate tensions in Gaza, turned into a war zone by five days of battles between rival Fatah and Hamas fighters that has driven the Palestinian unity government to the brink of collapse.
The Israeli strikes provoked threats from Hamas of a new wave of suicide attacks.
“All options against the Zionist enemy are open, including suicide attacks,” Abu Obeida warned.
In Washington, US President George W. Bush and visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair appealed to all parties in Gaza to work for peace.
“We're concerned about the violence we see in Gaza. We strongly urge the parties to work toward a two-state solution,” Bush said.
More than 20 rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel on Thursday, including one that struck a school in the southern town of Sderot and wounded a child, police said. Another person was also wounded in a separate attack.
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who ordered the air strikes late Wednesday in response the rocket attacks, paid a surprise visit to the town, visiting a hospital emergency room and trauma unit, his spokeswoman said.
Olmert expressed his sympathy to local people and assured them that the problem of the rocket fire was the government's top priority, she added.
In the southern Gaza town of Rafah, fighting also flared again, shattering the fourth truce in as many days.
Three people were killed and another dozen wounded in a shootout during a funeral for those killed on Wednesday.
The bloodshed also threatens to torpedo efforts to revive Middle East peacemaking after Arab states adopted a revived plan offering normal ties with Israel if it withdraws from land occupied in war in 1967.
The fighting — the third outbreak of deadly violence since December — has terrified Gaza Strip residents, worn down by months of unrest, lawlessness and a diplomatic and economic boycott imposed by the West and Israel after Hamas gained power last year.
The Palestinian unity cabinet that took office on March 17 in a Saudi-mediated power-sharing deal was supposed to end factional fighting that killed more than 100 people in December and January.
But tensions between the two rivals continued to simmer, stoked by disagreements over a US security plan, and they boiled over when a Hamas loyalist was killed by a Fatah man on Sunday.
