Israel approves 'new response' to violence

Israeli troops enter Gaza City

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's security Cabinet on Wednesday approved "a new type of response" to Palestinian attacks after gunmen killed six Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint on Tuesday.

The prime minister's office gave no details on what that response would entail, but sources said that the Israeli government was considering a greater use of small special forces teams.

"It's not an offensive," senior Sharon adviser Ra'anan Gissin said Wednesday. "I would rather define it as counter-guerrilla warfare since guerrilla warfare was launched at us.

"And I think what happened last night signifies a major escalation in this phase of the war -- then we are entitled to take that kind of action on a broad spectrum in order to meet that threat and stem it and stop it."

Sources inside the Israeli government said Wednesday they believe Palestinians are waging a "full-scale guerrilla war" with Israel.

Early Thursday, Israeli troops and tanks entered Gaza City from two directions and exchanged fire with residents in a neighborhood there in the deepest incursion by the Israelis in Gaza City in the past 17 months of violence, Palestinian sources said.

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The sources said leaders of local mosques in the neighborhood of Sijahiya were calling for people to resist the incursion into the Palestinian-controlled city.

The incursion was launched on the southern part of the Sijahiya neighborhood, and Palestinians and Israelis traded fire in that area, sources said. They added that a Palestinian FM radio station was destroyed there.

The sources said Israeli troops have also entered the city of Rafah, in Gaza. Four Palestinian gunmen who resisted that incursion were killed, Palestinian sources said.

There was no immediate comment on the latest operations from the Israel Defense Forces, which, as a matter of policy, does not comment on ongoing operations.

The operations also came on the heels of an Israeli helicopter attack late Wednesday that fired two missiles near Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat's compound in Gaza City, Palestinian security sources said. Arafat's office there was also targeted overnight Tuesday.

Arafat is in Ramallah, where he had been held in virtual house arrest for the last three months, and was not injured.

In addition, the Israel Defense Forces said Palestinian targets at Jenin in the West Bank and Rafah near the Egyptian border had been hit. Palestinian sources said Israeli F-16 fighters attacked the Palestinian police station Rafah near the Egyptian border.

Arafat was defiant, declaring that he was not afraid and that the Palestinians would continue to fight until Israeli forces and Jewish settlers leave the West Bank and Gaza and "the Palestinian flag flies over Jerusalem."

The latest violence comes against a backdrop of increased terrorist activity and military attacks by militant Palestinian groups and reprisal attacks by Israel's military.

Israeli forces unleashed attacks by land, air and sea at Palestinian targets in Gaza and the West Bank after the checkpoint attack. The Palestinian Authority said at least 16 Palestinians were killed.

Four Israelis were killed Monday by suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank.

Sharon has been under pressure from hard-liners within his Cabinet to take stronger measures against the Palestinians.

During the Al Aqsa Intifada, which is almost 17 months old, Israel has responded to suicide bombings and terror attacks by launching military strikes, most of them against Palestinian Authority targets. Israeli forces have also carried out arrests and "targeted killings" against Palestinians they said were planning or were on their way to carry out attacks on Israel.

After the security Cabinet met Wednesday, Israeli Labor and Social Affairs Minister Shlomo Benizri of the ultra-orthodox Shas Party told reporters: "Either we have all-out war on the [Palestinian] Authority or a breakthrough agreement. The Cabinet made the decision to intensify the war on terror, but ... this is not enough."

Sharon told the Cabinet he does not want to lead Israel into war, but one of his aides said, "We have taken the gloves off."

Saeb Erakat, the top Palestinian negotiator, said it was time Sharon restarted the peace talks. "So far his policies of escalation and aggression and bombing have not brought peace or security to Israelis or Palestinians," he said.

Sharon's office said the prime minister will continue to meet every day with the heads of the army and security to follow closely the country's new direction in the fight against terror.

Five members of Arafat's Force 17 personal guard died in an attack on Arafat's office in Gaza, seven Palestinian policemen and two youths were killed in a firefight near Nablus, one Palestinian policeman was killed in an airstrike on the Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah, and another Palestinian policeman was killed at a Ramallah roadblock, the Palestinian Authority said.

Palestinian sources said that while Israel has launched attacks on the Gaza compound before, this marked the first time Israel had targeted Arafat's actual office.

In addition, the Israeli army prohibited Palestinian travel between major West Bank cities, including Ramallah, Qalqilya, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem as well as Palestinian villages in those areas.

Israeli forces also conducted sweeps throughout the West Bank, arresting 20 Palestinians, two of which the Israeli military said were Hamas members. Four Kalashnikov rifles were confiscated during one of the raids.

And in Gaza, IDF said it attacked armored vehicles in a compound near Gaza City and also hit a Palestinian police security compound in the city of Khan Yunis.