Several explosions hit the house of an Islamic Jihad militant leader in a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip today, witnesses said.
Medics initially said that Mohammad El-Sheikh Khalil was critically wounded in the blast, but relatives later said he was unhurt. They said that two of his brothers were wounded in the strike.
Israel's Ariel Sharon has rejected his army's request to scale back its Gaza offensive, seeking to avoid any show of weakness after deadly bombings in Egyptian resorts crowded with Israelis, security sources said.
The prime minister decided a pullout from the besieged Jabalya refugee camp would encourage Palestinian militants to resume rocket fire into Israel and "send the wrong message" so soon after the Sinai bombings, a source said on today.
An Israeli missile hit the house of a local Islamic Jihad leader in a refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, wounding at least two people, Palestinian medics said.
Sharon's order to keep up the 12-day-old campaign also appeared aimed at mollifying hardliners before a parliamentary speech later today in which he will try to soften opposition to his plan to evacuate all 21 Gaza settlements next year.
If Sharon brings his "disengagement" plan to its first vote in parliament in coming weeks as he has promised, a key far-right coalition partner could bolt, forcing him to reshape his government or call early elections.
Sharon's Gaza plan has been complicated by Palestinian rocket fire into border towns, which triggered Israel's biggest and bloodiest offensive in the occupied coastal territory in four years of conflict.
Israel has killed 92 Palestinians since sending tanks into the northern Gaza Strip, including Jabalya, a militant stronghold and home to 100,000 refugees, after a Hamas rocket attack killed two toddlers in southern Israel. Three Israelis have also died since the raid began.
Army chief Moshe Yaalon asked Sharon on Sunday for permission to redeploy outside Jabalya, saying the army had driven back rocket crews and the longer troops stayed in the densely populated camp the greater the risk, sources said.
Despite low-key US pressure to end the operation, Sharon ordered the army to press on, saying a departure from Jabalya at this point could encourage militants to resume the firing of makeshift Qassam missiles into the Jewish state.
"He told the army to continue the operation at the same level," a source said.