Fatal Hamas attack spurs stern Israeli vow

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday vowed to widen the fight against Hamas militants with fresh airstrikes after a Hamas rocket fired from the Gaza Strip killed an Israeli.

“No one involved in terror is immune,” Olmert said at his government’s weekly Cabinet meeting. “There will be no limit in acting against the terror groups and against those who are responsible for the terror.”

It was not clear whether Olmert’s comments meant that Israelis would target Hamas’ political leaders, as it did during the Palestinian intifada.

For its part, Hamas rebuffed efforts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to broker a cease-fire and said rocket attacks against Israel would continue.

For the past 12 days, Israel has been pressing a campaign of airstrikes and raids in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, killing at least 40 Palestinians, most of them militants. But the barrage of Hamas rockets fired from Gaza into Israel has not stopped, with more than 220 launched since May 15.

Oshri Oz, 35, was the second Israeli killed by the barrage in the past week. He died Sunday after a rocket slammed into the street alongside the car he was driving in the town of Sderot.

Sunday night, two more rockets were fired into Sderot, one hitting a house and injuring a resident. Also Sunday night, Israel launched airstrikes on targets in northern and southern Gaza. No casualties were reported.

The sight of Israelis under attack put additional pressure on the beleaguered prime minister.

Olmert, speaking at what turned out to be a stormy Cabinet meeting, cautioned that Israel faced a “long-term confrontation” and that Israel would have to act independently of any internal Palestinian agreements or calls to halt fire.

“We will decide where, how and to what extent we act,” Olmert said. “We are acting without any limitation or directive from anyone.”