Israel's air force cancelled a planned raid on the home of a Gaza militant today after hundreds of Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the building, an Israeli military spokesman and witnesses said.
Hours after the successful "human shield" protest, an Israeli aircraft attacked a car carrying Hamas militants on a crowded Gaza City street. Hospital officials said an elderly passerby died of his wounds after being hit in the strike.
Medical workers said the two men in the vehicle and two other passersby were wounded.
Israel's defence minister, Amir Peretz, spoke today with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by phone and urged him to take steps to stop militants firing rockets into Israel, a Defence Ministry spokeswoman said.
"The defence minister told (Abbas) Israel will not tolerate continued rocket fire," she said, adding they would speak again.
Israel has stepped up attacks in northern Gaza since a Palestinian rocket strike killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded a man in the Israeli town of Sderot on Friday.
Israel had issued a warning to the family of a militant of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in Jabalya refugee camp to evacuate their home because it would soon be bombed, the spokesman and Palestinian witnesses said.
The PRC is one of several militant groups behind daily rocket attacks from Gaza against southern Israel.
Hundreds of neighbours and protesters gathered at the site, many barricading themselves inside the house and on its roof in defiance of the warning, witnesses said.
"Death to America and death to Israel," the crowd chanted.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the raid had been called off because of the gathering.
"We differentiate between innocent people and terrorists," the spokesman said, vowing Israel would continue its strikes against militants and accusing gunmen of using civilians in Jabalya as human shields.