MIDDLE EAST: Hamas and Islamic Jihad vowed yesterday to deliver "a more painful response than ever" to the deaths on Wednesday of 15 Palestinians, most of them armed gunmen, in Israeli military raids in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli government, which said the raids were designed to root out terrorists who fire on settlements and border positions and launch rockets across the border into Israel, ordered a high security alert.
The government also announced it would boycott hearings later this month at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where the legality of the West Bank security barrier it is building will be debated.
The new threats of bombings underlined Israel's need to construct the barrier in self-defence, officials said, and the UN General Assembly's referral of the issue to the court for discussion was politically motivated.
Hundreds of masked men, firing automatic weapons, led vast funeral processions through the streets of Gaza City yesterday. A Hamas gunman declared that suicide bombers were already poised to strike "in Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem and all the streets of our homeland". The Gaza death toll was the highest in a single day in well over a year.
Yesterday Israeli troops shot dead a Hamas man outside Ramallah. A spokesman said he was fleeing arrest. Neighbours said he was unarmed.
The army also said it had discovered a factory outside Ramallah where Hamas was making Qassam rockets, which could reach Jerusalem if fired from that area.
Israel has already submitted an affidavit to the international court arguing that it has no jurisdiction as regards the security barrier, but had been debating whether to plead its case at the hearings.
The US, UK, Germany, Australia and Canada have also filed submissions objecting to the hearings, and the Israeli government said yesterday that those countries would also stay away.