Israel hits Gaza targets, Egypt says talks positive

GAZA - Israel bombarded Gaza with air strikes today in a widening military effort to secure the release of an abducted Israeli soldier amid an Egyptian report that the ruling Palestinian party has approved his freedom.

Israeli warplanes roared over Gaza striking at various targets, including the office of Palestinian Interior Minister Saeed Seyam, which caught fire after it was hit in the intensifying military operation to free 19-year-old Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was abducted by gunmen on Sunday.

Reports of a gunbattle in northern Gaza trickled in even as an Egyptian newspaper reported that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Hamas, the ruling Palestinian party, has told him they have given conditional approval for Shalit's release.

Three militant groups, including an armed wing of Hamas, have claimed responsibility for the attack during which Shalit was abducted.

Israel has said it holds Hamas responsible for his safe return and has seized several members of the Islamic militant group, including government ministers, in the West Bank.

Egypt's al-Ahram newspaper also said Mubarak told it in an interview that although Hamas has given conditional approval, a handover agreement with Israel has not yet been reached.

"There were Egyptian communications which included a number of Hamas leaders and resulted in initial positive results in the form of a conditional approval by Hamas to turn over the Israeli soldier as quickly as possible to avoid escalation," the newspaper paraphrased Mubarak as saying.

Israeli troops and tanks rolled into southern Gaza on Wednesday in their first raid on the Palestinian enclave since it pulled troops and settlers out of the territory last summer.

Forces have also massed near central and northern Gaza, from which militants have fired dozens of rockets into Israel since its pullout. Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz has said Israel will aim to stop rocket launchers during its offensive.

Senior diplomatic sources and Israeli media said Israel has delayed a large-scale assault in Gaza to allow for last-ditch talks mediated by Egypt to try to secure the soldier's release.

The army had no comment.

Members of Hamas, which is sworn to the Jewish state's destruction and which has led the Palestinian government since it took office in March, were defiant in public.

"We swear to God that even if we are all crushed to death, we will never recognise Israel and we will never abandon our rights," Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri told thousands of supporters in Gaza City, as Israeli warplanes screamed overhead.

The United States and other world powers have cut off direct aid to the Palestinian Authority since Hamas won a January parliamentary election, and have demanded Hamas disarm and recognise the Jewish state and interim peace deals with it.

Israeli air strikes and artillery in recent days have wounded several Palestinians and have destroyed bridges, water systems and a major power transformer, causing blackouts in most of Gaza, home to 1.4 million Palestinians.

Air strikes on Friday also targeted an office used by President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group, injuring one Palestinian outside the building. Missiles slammed into two Hamas training camps and structures used by the Islamic group.

An Israeli army spokesman confirmed the strikes, saying all targets were abandoned at the time and that the Fatah office was used by the faction's militant group, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

The Palestinian Resistance Committees, one of the militant groups who claimed to have abducted Shalit, has said it would not confirm whether he is alive.

Israeli forces rounded up dozens of Hamas cabinet ministers and lawmakers in the West Bank yesterday and has vowed to bring them to trial on charges of involvement in "terror" acts against the Jewish state. But it says they are not "bargaining chips".

Palestinian militants have demanded Israel free prisoners in its jails in exchange for Shalit's release.

- REUTERS