Israel warns of action on Gaza as fighting rages

Gaza: Palestinian rival factions fought each other in Gaza on Friday and Israeli aircraft killed a Hamas fighter as Israel threatened to take "vibrant measures" to stop rocket attacks on its territory.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction has been accused by Hamas of joining forces with Israel against it, called US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to ask her to halt an Israeli "military escalation", a Palestinian news agency said.

Fatah and Hamas forces, locked in a week-old round of fighting, waged a fierce battle in Gaza City in which witnesses said three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the pro-Hamas Islamic University campus.

In Tel Aviv, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told foreign ambassadors the government may decide further action within days and noted the cabinet would meet as usual on Sunday.

"We will see sustained and vibrant measures to end the attacks to end the rocket attacks and remove the threat to southern Israel," government spokesman David Baker said.

Israeli forces have recently completed training for a possible ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, from which they and Israeli settlers withdrew in 2005.

Tanks and some other troops took up positions on Thursday, just inside the crowded coastal enclave in a move the military called "defensive".

At least nine Hamas fighters have been killed in Israeli strikes since early Thursday. Militants from Gaza have fired about 100 rockets at the town of Sderot and its surroundings in the past week, causing several injuries but no deaths

Four Hamas fighters were killed in an Israeli air strike overnight. In the early hours of Friday, a Hamas base near the Gaza Strip's eastern border with Israel was hit by what local officials said appeared to be at least one missile from an F-16 jet.

An Israeli army official confirmed the strike against the Hamas stronghold, saying the target was used by Hamas militants as a meeting place to carry out attacks against Israel. The official added that the building was suspected of housing a tunnel used to smuggle weapons and contraband into Israel.

Meanwhile, in Amman, Jordan's King Abdullah II expressed
deep concern on Friday over the violence, in a telephone conversation with embattled Palestinian president Mahmoud
Abbas.

The king "expressed his deep concern over the devastating
situation in the Gaza Strip," including deadly Palestinian factional fighting and Israeli air raids on the territory, state-run Petra news agency said.

He urged the Palestinians "to unite their front and exercise
self restraint as well as put differences aside," and "warned that the Israeli aggression could worsen the lives of innocent
Palestinian civilians."

The king has repeatedly warned in recent days that time was
running out for finding a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, insisting on the need to adopt a peace
plan approved at an Arab summit in March.

"We have a finite amount of time. Physically, there may not be a chance for a future Palestinian state," he warned in an interview published Friday in The Times of London.