Israel And Militants Trade Deadly Attacks In Gaza

GAZA, May 21 — The Israeli Air Force continued its airstrikes in Gaza today, killing four members of Islamic Jihad who the Israeli Army said were preparing to launch rockets against Israel.

An Israeli woman, who later died, is tended by paramedics after a rocket fired by Palestinians militants in Gaza hit a car in the town of Sderot, Israel.

Mourners during a mass funeral today in Gaza City for the Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike yesterday.

The four militants were killed in northern Gaza, near Beit Lahiya, and a fifth Palestinian, a member of Hamas, was killed in an attack on what Israel called a rocket-making facility in Nusseirat, in the middle of Gaza. Palestinians said the establishment belonged to a stonemason; the raid also knocked out an electricity station next door, cutting power to a neighborhood of Nusseirat.

Tonight, a rocket launched from Gaza killed an Israeli woman, 35, and wounded a man when it hit their car in the Israeli town of Sderot. The woman, who was standing next to the car, died in hospital. She was the ninth Israeli to have died from Palestinian rocket attacks in the last seven years; her name was not immediately released.

Angry Israelis gathered around the burning car, refusing to take shelter. Twelve people were treated for shock.

The rocket was part of a small barrage of six this evening. Earlier, the number of rockets launched at Israel had been relatively few, only nine during the day, the army said, six of which landed in Israel, causing no injuries.

The Israeli attacks on Gaza followed an airstrike on Sunday night that hit the home of a Hamas legislator, Khalil al-Hayya, who was not at home. Seven members of his family died, including three of his brothers, and a neighbor.

Israel said it was targeting Sameh Ferwanah, 27, a Hamas fighter involved in numerous rocket launchings into Israel and shooting attacks against Israelis, including an electricity worker wounded on March 19.

Hamas said today that two of the dead were members of the Qassam brigades, its military wing. In a statement faxed to the press, the brigades threatened to use all means to respond to the Israeli attacks. The brigades also ordered members to stop using cellphones from the Palestinian mobile phone company Jawwal and not to gather in groups to avoid being tracked by Israeli airplanes and drones.

The planes of the Zionist enemy are in the skies all the time, a Hamas member said in a radio message to the Brigades.

A spokesman for Islamic Jihads armed wing, known as Abu Ahmed, said that the Zionist attack will not stop rocket fire against Zionist towns and that the leaders of the Zionist enemy will pay a price.

The funeral for the Hayya family was a raucous affair, with gunmen from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and Fatahs Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades firing weapons into the air and shouting for vengeance.

The Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya of Hamas, spoke at the mosque where a funeral service was held and called on Palestinians to come together to defend their unity government and unite against Israel. We are the people who are the fighters defending our dignity and the heritage of this nation, he said, and I tell Fatah and Hamas to let go the battles forever, to consolidate the ratified agreements and stand together against Israeli aggression.

Mr. Haniya added, We will keep to the same path until we win one of two goals: victory or martyrdom. He asserted that Hamas was stronger than before. They thought that after one year of embargo and the battles from all sides that we will be weakened. But you proved your strength. He told Mr. Hayya: My brother Khalil, go on and dont look behind. Blood is flowers and light that shows our path toward Al Aksa, or Jerusalem.

But at the Hayya home, the talk was full of intra-Palestinian rancor.

Asma al-Hayya, 24, said her father, Nimir, worked in Israel until the beginning of the second intifada, or uprising, in 2000 and was killed because his brother is Hamas, she said.

This isnt war between Hamas and Fatah, she said. This is a war against Islam. Those pretending to be Fatah are collaborators, and they coordinate with Israel against Hamas.

A Hamas legislator, Huda Naaem, said, Inside Fatah there is the program that is American-Zionist, and which fights resistance. Another Hamas legislator, Jamilah Shanty, asserted that Hamas will remain in government to protect resistance, so we will continue fighting and will insist on government, too.

Asked if Palestinians would support another round of intifada, Ms. Shanty said, Yes, I believe they will. This intifada will be more violent.

Hamas held a large and noisy rally after the funeral with many armed men and chants of resistance is the only alternative and Fatah is criminal, with a Zionist agenda.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, has not visited Gaza since the fighting started, and Mr. Haniyas appearance at the mosque was seen as a contrast by numerous Palestinians. Mr. Abbas may come to Gaza on Tuesday, his aides said, to seal the cease-fire between the factions.

But in Khan Yunis later today, two Hamas men were seriously injured in a shooting that Hamas blamed on the Fatah leader in the large camp, Said al-Najar. Under the cease-fire agreement sponsored by Egypt, a committee was appointed to investigate the shooting.

Several hundred Palestinian rockets have been fired into Israel, with more of them now being fired by Hamas, which had largely refrained from such actions under a kind of cease-fire with Israel over Gaza dating from last November. That cease-fire is over, although the Palestinians are calling for a new cease-fire to cover both Gaza and also the West Bank, where Israeli troops operate freely.

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But Israeli politicians were also talking tough. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a cabinet minister, said: I dont distinguish between those who carry out the attacks and those who give the orders. I say we have to put them all into the crosshairs.

Avi Dichter, a former Shin Bet director and now public security minister, said Khaled Meshal, the political bureau director of Hamas in exile in Damascus, would not be immune from Israeli attack. Im convinced that they will say goodbye to him at the first opportunity that arises, he told the Israeli Army radio. Meshal is not invincible, not in Damascus and not elsewhere. Israel tried to assassinate Mr. Meshal in 1997.

On Sunday, the Israeli security cabinet authorized the military to target Palestinian military leaders who order or carry out rocket attacks. But Israeli officials said politicians from Hamas and other militant groups were not targets for now.

Taghreed El-Khodary reported from Gaza, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem.

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