A Hamas rocket attack from Gaza killed a man in Israel today and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged unlimited military action against the militant group, saying "no one involved in terror" would be immune.
Hamas's armed wing said it had promoted members of the squad that launched the rocket into the southern town of Sderot, where it exploded on a street, spraying shrapnel into a car and causing its 36-year-old driver to slam into a wall.
He was the second Israeli to die in a rocket attack in a nearly two-week-old surge in bloodshed, with no end in sight to violence that has made revival of peacemaking even more remote.
Yesterday, Israel's air campaign in the Gaza Strip killed five Hamas militants. "No one involved in terror has immunity -- pure and simple," Mr Olmert said in broadcast remarks at Israel's weekly cabinet session, after the Sderot attack.
His comments appeared to suggest that Hamas political leaders - regarded by Israel as giving the green light to rocket salvoes from territory Israeli troops and settlers quit in 2005 - might also be attacked in a wider air campaign.
Mr Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, made no mention of political officials in listing potential targets.
"We will seek out every rocket launcher, every rocket team. We will go after those who fire the rockets, those who make the rockets, those who smuggle in the rockets into the Gaza Strip," she said.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Mr Olmert's "threats and the continued Zionist escalation" make any talk about calm pointless".