Violence flares up in Gaza Strip

Violence escalated in the troubled Gaza Strip on Thursday with Israeli fighter jets targeting Palestinian rocket launchers and a weapons workshop, dealing a severe blow to chances of extending a six-month Egypt-mediated truce in the region which is set to expire on Friday.

The Israeli air raids, carried out overnight, were in retaliation to around 20 rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

It was for the first time during the six-month ceasefire between the Jewish state and the Palestinian militant factions that Israel had deployed the fighter jets.

The Israeli raids targeteda weapons cache in the refugee-dominated northern Gaza town of Jabalaya and a metal workshop that used to manufacture rockets and mortars in the southern town of Khan Younis. The Palestinian rocket launchers were also attacked, reports reaching Jerusalem said.

There were no casualties in the Israeli air strikes but they caused extensive damage to the infrastructure, Palestinian sources said.

The last week had seen an upsurgein rocket attacks from Gaza with some 20 hitting Israel's southern areas yesterday alone, leaving three people wounded. A Palestinian man was also killed yesterday during an Israeli air raid on Gaza.

Gaza militants this morning fired four Qassam rockets but there were no injuries or damage.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, affiliated to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, claimed responsibility for two of the rockets fired on Thursday.

Despite the breaches in the unwritten ceasefire agreement, Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak expressed hope that the truce, which expires tomorrow, would continue.

"Of course the 'tahadiyeh' (calm) was not a mistake," Barak told Haaretz magazine in an interview.

"I am continuing the policy set by (David) Ben Gurion (Israel's first Prime Minister), which states that Israel has no interest in wars. If the quiet continues, there will be quiet. If the calm breaks, we will operate."

Experts feel that Islamist Hamas, which has total control over the Gaza Strip after it vanquished Abbas' Fatah-dominated security apparatus in June 2006, is supportive of the escalation to the extent that it can help carve out a better truce deal, but does not want to give up on the ceasefire.

Israel has already made clear that it is interested in continuing with the calm but Hamaswould also not like to be seen as cooperating with the Jewish entity, according to editorials in leading Israeli dailies.

Hamas has repeated its demand of extending the ceasefire to the West Bank and also to open crossings leading to the Gaza Strip to ease the humanitarian situation there.