After Suicide Bombings, Israel Kills 7 From Hamas

Israel killed seven Hamas militants in a series of airstrikes after the group detonated three vehicles packed with hundreds of kilograms of explosives at an Israeli crossing on the Gaza border. Two of the militants were killed early Sunday.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, visiting the area of the suicide attacks on Saturday, which killed 3 bombers and wounded 13 Israeli soldiers, warned that Hamas would “bear the consequences.”

However, an immediate Israeli offensive appeared unlikely. Israelis are observing the Passover holiday, and in May will celebrate the country’s 60th birthday, with President George W. Bush in attendance.

The militant Islamic group Hamas said the attack Saturday on the Kerem Shalom crossing had been part of a campaign to break the nearly yearlong blockade of Gaza, by force if necessary. Israel and Egypt virtually sealed Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory by force.

After the attack, Israel struck Hamas militants in a series of missile strikes, killing seven.

Of those, five were killed Saturday and two early Sunday. Four Hamas gunmen were wounded in the strikes Sunday, medics said.

Two Palestinian teenagers also died Sunday of wounds suffered in an apparent Israeli attack that killed the Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana in the Gaza Strip last week, raising the total death toll in that incident to six, hospital staff said.

In Amman, Jimmy Carter, the former U.S. president, briefed King Abdullah II of Jordan on Sunday about Palestinian-Israeli peace moves and his meetings with Hamas, a Royal Palace official said.

During the discussion, Abdullah focused his attention on U.S.- backed talks between the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, rather than on any of Carter’s dealings with Hamas, with which Jordan has frosty relations, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Carter met with senior Hamas leaders Friday and Saturday in Syria, defying U.S. and Israeli warnings that doing so would lend legitimacy to the group, responsible for suicide bombings and other attacks that have killed some 250 Israelis.

Hamas officials said they talked with Carter about an internationally backed Israeli embargo on Gaza and a possible Israel- Hamas prisoner swap. Hamas did not respond to Carter’s requests, however, that it halt rocket fire on Israeli border towns and agree to talk to Israel’s deputy prime minister, Eli Yishak, about a prisoner exchange.

The attack on Kerem Shalom started about 6 a.m. Saturday, said Major General Yoav Galant, the top army commander in the area. Hamas militants drove an armored personnel carrier and two jeeps made to look like Israeli Army vehicles toward the crossing under the cover of morning fog as Hamas pounded the border area with heavy mortar fire.

“This is an attack the likes of which we have not seen since disengagement,” Galant said, referring to Israel’s pullout from Gaza in September 2005.

Israel has strictly limited the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza since Hamas took control of the area last June and has further restricted the flow of goods, including a reduction in fuel supplies, as a sanction against continued rocket fire.

With the passenger crossing with Egypt mostly closed, Gaza’s population of 1.5 million relies completely on goods allowed in from Israel.

About 200 truckloads of essential food and medical supplies pass through Kerem Shalom each week. On Friday, 48 trucks delivered goods including wheelchairs, babies’ bottles and food, the military said.

Originally published by AP, IHT, Reuters.

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