ISRAEL:Describing Hamas leaders as "terrorists in suits", Israel's deputy defence minister yesterday did not rule out targeting even Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, of Hamas, as part of a campaign to strike at those in the Gaza Strip whom the government believes is responsible for the rocket fire at towns in southern Israel.
Asked whether Israel might target even Mr Haniyeh, an elected official, Ephraim Sneh replied: "I'll put it like this - there is no one who is in the circle of commanders and leaders in Hamas who is immune from a strike."
Fearing they may be targeted, leaders of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza have stayed indoors and have turned off their mobile phones.
In 2004 Israel went after the senior leadership in Hamas, including the movement's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed outside a Gaza mosque by a missile fired from a helicopter.
Israeli defence minister Amir Peretz yesterday warned that the government was not ruling out a ground operation if Islamic militants continued to fire rockets into Israel.
"We have been biting our lip and trying not to get to a situation whereby we have to enter into a widescale ground operation," he said, after meeting European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Jerusalem.
For now, a ground incursion deep into Gaza is unlikely. Most cabinet ministers, including the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, fear the military could get bogged down in the densely populated strip.
"I don't have simple answers," Mr Olmert told angry residents of the southern town of Sderot, which he visited on Monday evening just after a woman was killed by a rocket - the first Israeli fatality since violence erupted a week ago. "Even when we were in Gaza they continued to shoot at us," he said.
Mr Olmert is likely to continue with the policy of aerial attacks on militants in the hope this will deter them from firing rockets into Israel. Seven Palestinians were injured yesterday in three Israeli strikes, while militants fired 13 rockets into Israel.