Israel kills 9 in airstrikes, sends in troops

Retaliating after three days of rocket fire, Israel mounted several airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Thursday and early today, killing as many as nine people in a region already engulfed in a bloody Palestinian factional struggle.

The Israeli military also confirmed Thursday evening that it had a sent a “small force” to join tanks that had crossed into the northern edge of Gaza. A spokesman said the troops were staying close to the border fence and that the operation was “not an incursion.”

Throughout the day Thursday, five Israeli attacks destroyed buildings belonging to Hamas and targeted cars carrying suspected Islamic militants. Hamas said that three of its members were killed and promised reprisals, possibly including suicide bombings within Israel.

It was the radical Islamic organization’s first threat of suicide attacks since declaring an oft-punctured and recently abandoned cease-fire with Israel in November. But the group’s capacity to carry out such operations is in question at the moment because it has been preoccupied with fierce clashes with rival movement Fatah.

The Palestinian infighting claimed two more Fatah security agents in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, pushing the death toll past 40 in five days.

But the coastal territory was markedly quieter than in previous days, providing a ray of hope that a truce announced Wednesday might last longer than three earlier, extremely short-lived attempts at silencing the guns.

After huddling frightened in their homes since violence broke out Sunday, some residents ventured out to shop and do business on streets where masked gunmen had fought running battles only hours before.

Three of Israel’s airstrikes were launched within the space of a few hours Thursday afternoon, all in Gaza City.

The first leveled a two-story building used by Hamas security forces. One person died and 30 others were injured, hospital officials said.

The second missile strike killed a Hamas militant in a car that the Israeli military said was transporting arms, including Kassam rockets, which have rained down on southern Israel since Tuesday. The third airstrike hit a small Hamas post, killing one person.

On Thursday evening, Israeli missiles slammed into a car that the military alleged was carrying three militants who had just launched rockets from southern Gaza, outside the Rafah refugee camp.

Witnesses confirmed that mortar rounds had been fired from the area an hour before the airstrike, but said that two Israeli missiles hit a pickup truck belonging to the Khan Yunis municipality. Inside was a family, including two brothers, ages 13 and 18, who were killed instantly, hospital officials said.

A fifth strike was aimed at a militant in Gaza City who the military said had just launched rockets into Israel. There was no immediate word on casualties.

And early this morning, after a rocket slammed into a synagogue, Israeli troops fired several missiles at a building east of Gaza City that military officials said hid a tunnel through which weapons were smuggled. The Associated Press reported that the sustained air attack killed four people, at least three of them members of Hamas.

Israel stepped up its air offensive Thursday, a day after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged a “severe and harsh” response to the rockets, which have seriously wounded at least two people.

More Kassams landed in the town of Sderot and in other parts of southern Israel throughout Thursday, including one that struck a school, injuring two people. Hundreds of Sderot residents have been evacuated to other parts of the country.

Despite the small military incursion into Gaza, no one expects Olmert to order a major ground assault, in part because the Israeli leader has been considerably weakened politically in recent weeks from a scathing official report on his conduct of last year’s war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Many analysts believe the rocket attacks to be a ploy by Hamas to divert attention from the factional violence and to unite Palestinian groups by provoking an Israeli response.

Those suspicions were supported by comments Thursday by Khaled Meshaal, a Hamas leader in exile who told a Hamas television channel that the Israeli airstrikes were a “historic opportunity” for Palestinian factions to rally together, Reuters news agency reported.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, whose power-sharing government with Hamas is under severe strain from this week’s internecine violence, postponed a trip to Gaza meant to bolster the truce.

Some said that conditions were still too unstable for a visit from Abbas, who is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah. His home and office in Gaza have been the target of several shootings over the last few days.

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henry.chu@latimes.com

Special correspondent Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.