Fresh rocket salvo threatens truce

Gaza: Islamic Jihad fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip yesterday after an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, in renewed violence that threatened prospects for an Egyptian-brokered truce.

No one was injured by the salvo against the border town of Sderot, the first such attack by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian faction, since March 5.

Israel, which had not struck in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in a week, attacked from the air a rocket launcher in the town of Beit Hanoun after Sderot was hit. No one was hurt.

Islamic Jihad had vowed revenge after Israeli troops killed four of its members in the West Bank on Wed-nesday.

At least 12 rockets were fired from Gaza yesterday. A house was damaged but there were no casualties, the Israeli military said.

"This was our initial response," an Islamic Jihad spokesman said.

Ceasefire

Israel has rebuffed Hamas's call for the West Bank to be included in any ceasefire arrangement.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the operations showed that Israel would continue to "pursue and attack all murderers with blood on their hands and their dispatchers".

Daoud Shehab, an Islamic Jihad spokesman, said Israel had "wiped out any chance to talk about calm at this time".

Hamas said Israeli "aggression" risked destroying Cairo's efforts to mediate a ceasefire, seen as key to securing enough quiet for there to be progress in US-sponsored peace talks between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

But Hamas, which is seeking a reopening of the territory's borders as part of a truce deal, stop-ped short of abandoning the ceasefire talks in which Islamic Jihad also has participated.

Hamas has largely held its fire since March 3, when Israel ended a five-day offensive against Gaza rocket crews in which more than 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians, and two soldiers died.

'Sub-contracting' terror

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Israel would hold Hamas accountable for every rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, the territory the group seized in fighting against Abbas's Fatah faction in June.

"When another group publicly takes responsibility, as happened earlier today, such a group could not be shooting rockets without the acquiescence and collaboration of Hamas. We will not allow Hamas to sub-contract out terrorism," Regev said.