Palestinians defy Israel's new tactics

Israeli tanks demolished a border post in Gaza

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have launched fresh mortar attacks on Israel, where Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is under pressure over the army's incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas.

In the latest attack, five mortar rounds were fired from the Gaza Strip towards the Israeli town of Sederot, Israeli sources said. No casualties were reported.

Israeli attacks have left homes and businesses in ruins

Earlier, mortar shells also fell in Kfar Darom, a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, Israel radio reported.

Israeli tanks shelled a Palestinian police post in northern Gaza, Palestinians said. Heavy exchanges of fire between Palestinian and Israeli forces were also reported near Bethlehem in the West Bank.

The renewed attacks came after Mr Sharon spoke to US President George Bush by telephone and they both "agreed on the need for restraint by all parties to avoid further escalation in the area", according to the White House.

Gaza incursion

The latest Palestinian mortar attack came only hours after a small Israeli force ended a brief incursion into Gaza.

Click here for a map of Gaza

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine says it carried out the attack, which followed the demolition of a police border post in southern Gaza by three Israeli tanks and a bulldozer.

Israel says fortified posts in Gaza are used by Palestinian gunman to fire at Israeli positions and Jewish settlers.

Israel's disregard of Arab sentiments and its provocation of the Arab citizen everywhere is causing a state of great anger among the Arab masses

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Mr Sharon has been sharply criticised in Israel for the army's hasty retreat from Gaza - after an army commander had insisted the troops could stay there for "several months" in order to ward off further Palestinian attacks.

The BBC's Jeremy Cooke in Jerusalem says Mr Sharon now faces a dilemma about how to react.

If Israel responds with further violence over mortar attacks it will risk damaging its relations with Washington. If he does not retaliate his opponents will accuse him of bowing to US pressure.

Fear of escalation

At the same time, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has criticised the Palestinians.

"We haven't seen on the Palestinian side the kind of calls for an end to violence to stop the shootings," Mr Boucher said.

Sharon: Under fire for pulling out

Israel raised the stakes on Monday when its troops reoccupied 2.5 square kilometres (one square mile) of Palestinian territory at Beit Hanoun in eastern Gaza.

It was the first time Israeli troops had re-entered the 70% of Gaza controlled by the Palestinian Authority for any length of time since it was handed over in 1994 under the Oslo peace accords.

The Israeli forces withdrew 24 hours later after US Secretary of State Colin Powell criticised the operation as "excessive and disproportionate".

Correspondents say Washington's rebuke of Israel was the harshest by Israel's main ally since the outbreak in September of the Palestinian uprising.

Harsh words

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has said his country will not stand idly by and watch Israeli aggression following an Israeli air raid on Sunday in which three Syrian troops were killed.

Palestinians salvage what they can from razed homes

Speaking to a meeting of the Baath Party's Regional Command on Tuesday, he said he would set up donation centres in Syrian cities to help the Palestinian cause.

"Israel's disregard of Arab sentiments and its provocation of the Arab citizen everywhere is causing a state of great anger among the Arab masses," Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.

The six-and-a-half month uprising in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel seized during the 1967 war, has cost more than 470 lives, most of them Palestinians killed by Israeli troops, but also about 70 of them Israelis killed by Palestinians.

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