Middle East: A fortnight after it completed its withdrawal from Gaza, Israel has launched a wave of air strikes and yesterday threatened to escalate its retaliatory offensive against Palestinian militants firing rockets at nearby Israeli towns.
A sharp surge in violence in the Gaza Strip over the weekend comes at a particularly sensitive time for Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon who today faces a major challenge by his hardline rival Benjamin Netanyahu for the leadership of the Likud Party.
But there was relief for Mr Sharon last night as a senior Hamas leader said his group would stop launching rocket and other attacks against Israel.
"The movement declares an end to its operations from the Gaza Strip against the Israeli occupation, which came ... in response to the assaults by the enemy," Hamas's most senior leader, Mahmoud al-Zahar.
Mr Netanyahu hopes to oust Mr Sharon as party chairman by exploiting the anger of far-right members of Likud's central committee over the recent evacuation of all 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.
Mr Netanyahu is citing the renewed violence as proof of his claim that Mr Sharon's unilateral "disengagement" from the coastal enclave would reward terror and bring more aggression.
The Likud Party's 3,000-member central committee votes today on a proposal to advance the date of its leadership primaries from next April to November, a contest which Mr Netanyahu believes he would win. After debates on the issue yesterday evening, the committee members are technically voting today merely on a date for the party leadership primaries. However, the outcome of the vote is widely seen a sign of support for the candidates themselves.
Analysts say a vote to advance the primaries could trigger snap elections and prompt Mr Sharon to quit the party which he helped found in 1973 and form a new centrist alliance.
The latest polls suggest that a new party led by Mr Sharon would win more seats than the Likud's present total of 40 out of 120 in parliament, while a Likud Party led by Mr Netanyahu would be reduced to 14.
The current escalation in violence also poses a major challenge to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas who has shied from disarming militant groups for fear of causing a civil war.
The current bout of retaliatory violence threatens the already shaky "period of calm" agreed by Israel and the Palestinian factions last February in Egypt.
Amid reports that Israeli ministers had agreed to resume targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants and even re-enter the Strip, Mr Sharon yesterday took a tough line.
He ordered troops to use "all means" to prevent rocket attacks if they are not halted by Palestinian security forces or the militants themselves.
As part of the campaign named Operation First Rain, the Israeli army yesterday fired artillery into uninhabited areas in the Strip, in what it said were tests to calibrate its equipment.
"We don't intend here to stage a one-time action, but intend to carry out a continued action, whose aim is to hurt the terrorists and not to let up," Mr Sharon told ministers ahead of yesterday's cabinet meeting.
Israel began its aerial assaults early on Saturday after a barrage of rocket attacks from Gaza struck the Israeli town of Sderot on Friday and Saturday, injuring six civilians. Two Hamas militants were killed and Palestinian human rights groups said 24 civilians, including seven children, were wounded by the missiles fired from helicopter gunships which targeted buildings in Gaza used by all four main Palestinian militant factions.
Last night, another air strike on a car in Gaza killed at least two Palestinians. In the West Bank, troops yesterday rounded up 206 suspected militants, including two leaders of Hamas.
The Palestinian rocket attacks began after Israel killed three alleged Islamic Jihad militants in an "arrest operation" in villages in the West Bank.
Islamic Jihad in Gaza retaliated by firing missiles at the Israeli border town of Sderot on Friday. Hamas intensified the attacks later that day after 16 people were killed and scores wounded by an explosion during a rally it held in Gaza to celebrate Israel's withdrawal.
Hamas blamed Israel for the blast, but Israel denied involvement and the Palestinian Authority said it appeared to be an accident caused by Hamas members carrying explosives.
Palestinian leaders yesterday accused Israel of trying to wreck hopes of reviving peace talks under the internationally-endorsed "Road Map" in the wake of the Gaza withdrawal.
President Abbas said that if Mr Sharon had ordered the army to use full force it meant that "he doesn't want peace, or security, or negotiations."
Hamas vowed revenge for the latest Israeli strikes and raids which spokesman Mushir al-Masri said could "open the doors to hell".