Middle East

Israelis arrest Hamas leaders

(AP)
Updated: 2007-05-24 16:04

Three people were slightly wounded in one of the attacks, medical officials said, and four stores were damaged in another, Palestinian security officials said. Electricity was cut off in parts of the town.

A third airstrike in the city shortly after midnight hit a car whose passengers escaped before the screeching missiles landed. The army said it targeted Hamas militants.

Earlier in the day, Israel fired missiles at suspected Hamas weapons workshops in Gaza City and the Jebaliya refugee camp. The Jebaliya strike injured six people, including a pregnant woman and a teenage boy.

Militants from various Palestinian factions claimed to have fired rockets at southern Israel throughout the day. The military said six landed in Israeli territory.

In a new tactic, Israeli troops also made a brief foray deeper into Gaza early Wednesday, searching several homes about half a mile from the border and briefly detaining seven Palestinians. Soldiers left behind handwritten notes warning that houses could be demolished if rockets are fired from the property.

The Abbas-Haniyeh meeting ended with the two sides agreeing their factions would meet again.

"We are working to recommit to the truce," Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

Haniyeh aide Ghazi Hamad said in a statement that the two leaders called on the international community "to protect the Palestinians and pressure Israel to stop the attacks."

A Haniyeh aide, Ahmed Yousef, said a renewed cease-fire with Israel would have to be comprehensive, and include the West Bank in addition to Gaza. The previous truce, brokered in November, applied only to the Gaza-Israel border, and Israel rejected repeated Palestinian demands that it also halt arrest raids in the West Bank.

"If it is going to be for Gaza only, then no one will be able to convince the Palestinian resistance factions to commit to that," Yousef said.