Israeli Forces Sweep Into Gaza City
Israel sent tanks and troops into Gaza City early Friday in its first operation since a heavily criticized bombing attack there killed a Hamas leader and 14 civilians.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops fatally shot a Palestinian man as he stood in his kitchen in Qalqiliya, Palestinian security officials said. They said Israeli soldiers were firing live ammunition as they searched houses, and that the man had been hit in the head. The army said it was checking the report.

…After the much criticized air strike, Israel pledged to release some tax money withheld from the Palestinian Authority and to lift curfews.

However, Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said everything depended on Palestinian efforts to stop attacks against Israel. Gissin also dismissed concerns that the Gaza bombing, in which Hamas military commander Salah Shehadeh was killed, would lead to a surge in Hamas suicide bombings as revenge.

Acknowledging for the first time that Israel was behind the death of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leader Raed Karmi in a bomb explosion in the West Bank on Jan. 14, Gissin said that operation had reduced bombing attacks. He said expected the same result from the killing of Shehadeh. The Al Aqsa militia is affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

In the nighttime Gaza raid, witnesses said seven tanks accompanied a bulldozer that flattened a small Palestinian military intelligence position and a metal workshop, and then soldiers blew up another workshop in a blast that could be heard all over the city.

Gunmen fired at the Israelis, and two Palestinians were wounded in the exchange, they said.

Israeli tanks have on at least two occasions entered the fringes of Gaza City in the past 22 months of fighting. The overnight raid was believed to be the deepest they have entered into the city, however. Previously for such operations, the military has used helicopter gunships.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer defended the decision to kill Shehadeh, commander of the Hamas military wing known as Izzadine al-Qassam, which has claimed responsibility for hundreds of attacks against Israelis.

Speaking to his Labor party, Ben-Eliezer claimed Shehadeh was planning a ``mega-terror'' attack inside Israel, ``perhaps the biggest Israel has ever seen, a truck with a ton of explosives that was intended to shock the people of Israel and cause hundreds, hundreds of dead.''

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Shaath said the Israeli air strike was aimed at scuttling a unilateral cease-fire that the Tanzim, a leading militant group affiliated with Fatah, was set to declare. The Tanzim was also talking with other militant factions, such as Hamas, which were considering the proposal.

Hamas leaders have said that the Israeli attack canceled the pact, and that they will step up suicide bombing attacks.

However, Shaath said a new effort would be made to revive the plan. ``We will resume our dialogue within the coming few days,'' he told The Associated Press.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html