Hamas mulls renewal of suicide bombings in Israel

The Israel Defense Forces is preparing to escalate its activities at the Gaza Strip border in response to continuing Qassam rocket and mortar fire into the western Negev.

On Saturday alone 13 rockets and 20 mortar rounds were fired into Israel. No one was injured, but one rocket damaged a kibbutz building. The violence came after Hamas' official announcement that it would not extend its six-month cease-fire with Israel.

The Israel Air Force staged a number of operations over the Strip in the past two days in an effort to weaken the rocket launchers.

An air force strike in Beit Lahia Saturday killed Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades militant Ali Hijazi, 25, while he was trying to launch rockets. Two others were wounded. Though affiliated with Fatah, the organization's branch in Gaza does not operate under the instruction of the movement's leadership in the West Bank.

Security sources on Saturday told Haaretz that a new policy would be drafted in the coming days for dealing with rocket fire from the Strip. Israel will ratchet up air force strikes, which will no longer be limited to rocket-launching cells themselves. They will also target weapons stores and workshops, as well as the heads of networks involved in rocket launching.

"We will have to take an aggressive line," a security official said. "Israel gave Hamas an opportunity to gradually pull back the rocket strikes, but it didn't respond. This level of violence, with close to 10 rockets fired a day, is unacceptable."

Israel is taking into account that a military escalation could lead militants firing the Qassams from Gaza to expand their range of targets. Sources at Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security service believe rockets launched from the Strip can now reach Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malakhi and the suburbs of Ashdod and Be'er Sheva.

Hamas representatives are also not ruling out a renewal of suicide bombings in Israel. Ayman Taha, a Hamas representative in Gaza, told Haaretz that under the current conditions, no cease-fire is in effect whatsoever.

"Rocket fire is in the hands of the military wing. It will decide how to react," he said. "Resistance must continue in every way and by every means, as long as the occupation continues."

Until now, Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for the majority of rockets fired into Israel, and a number of smaller militant groups have claimed the rest.

A Qassam rocket fell Saturday next to a factory in Sderot, and a mortar shell fell on a cosmetics institute in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

Kibbutz residents strongly criticized Defense Minister Ehud Barak. "The number-one security official has failed us. From the moment the entered into the cease-fire from a position of inferiority, he surrendered to them," said one.