Olmert vows to continue targeting leaders behind Qassam strikes

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged Tuesday to target terrorist leaders in the Gaza Strip responsible for the rockets fired at southern Israel, after Israel Air Force raids killed at least 11 Palestinians since Monday night including the head of the Islamic Jihad military wing in Gaza.

Palestinians fired some 15 mortar shells and five Qassam rockets at Israel Tuesday, causing no injuries or damage.

"We will continue to seek out the heads of the terror organizations and strike at them," Olmert said at a Kadima meeting in Jerusalem last night. "We will get all those who are responsible for firing rockets on the communities near Gaza and on Sderot."

"Events in the field speak and will speak for themselves, and I think the terror organizations feel this and will continue to feel this in full force in the near future," he said. "I think that in the past two days, more people understand that a war is underway there. This war will not cease."

Israeli security officials signaled that other Islamic Jihad leaders could be targeted, saying Israel has drawn up plans to hit the heads of the organization as well as activists involved in firing rockets and other attacks.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said after meeting with James L. Jones, the special United States envoy for Middle East security, that Israel would not let up in its offensive in Gaza, but warned that the militants? threats of revenge must be taken seriously.

"I hope these successes continue," Barak said. "At the same time we must be on our guard for the responses that may come from the other side."Three Islamic Jihad operatives and two Hamas police officers were killed in two separate Israeli air strikes Tuesday morning, and six Palestinians were killed the night before.

Among the dead were Majed Harazin, Islamic Jihad?s charismatic military commander for Gaza and the West Bank, and master rocket-maker Karim al-Dahdouh.

"There is no doubt that this is a big loss," said Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza.

Islamic Jihad countered with a threat to resume suicide bombings in Israel, as thousands of Gazans took to the streets in funeral processions for the dead militants, many firing assault rifles. In northern Gaza, bullets from the rifles of mourners severed an electric wire that fell and injured five people, medics said.

"The blood of our comrades will be the fuel for the rockets that will bring death and destruction to the Zionists," Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza told reporters.

Islamic Jihad officials instructed their operatives to avoid using cellular phones and traveling in vehicles, in an effort to keep Israel from killing more of them.