MIDDLE EAST: Israel continued its aerial blitz of Gaza yesterday, destroying part of the Palestinian Authority's interior ministry, as it tried to crank up the pressure on Hamas-led militants to release an Israeli soldier being held captive in the coastal strip.
However, prime minister Ehud Olmert delayed an expected ground invasion in northern Gaza aimed at preventing militants from firing rockets into Israel.
As part of efforts to hobble the Hamas-led government, Israel also stripped four senior officials of the Islamic movement - three lawmakers and a minister - of their Jerusalem residency, denying them their right to live in the city. The four were all arrested by Israel on Thursday in an overnight raid in the West Bank in which over 60 Hamas officials, including eight ministers and 20 lawmakers, were seized.
The fourth-floor interior ministry office of Hamas minister Said Siyam in Gaza was destroyed in a pre-dawn raid yesterday when it was hit by a missile fired during an Israeli air strike. Israel said the interior ministry, which is nominally in charge of the Palestinian Authority security forces, was targeted because it was "a meeting place to plan and direct terror activity". Israeli aircraft continued to strike dozens of infrastructure targets in Gaza yesterday, including the only power plant in the Strip.
Israeli naval vessels also fired shells into open areas in northern Gaza from where militants have been launching their makeshift rockets.
Israeli officials played down reports that the government had delayed a push into northern Gaza after it had received a request by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak not to abandon diplomatic efforts to free 19-year-old Cpl Gilad Shalit, the kidnapped soldier.
There were some suggestions Mr Olmert wanted to allow more time for diplomatic efforts so that when an operation was launched in northern Gaza it would be less likely to face international criticism.
"The prime minister is managing the campaign while seeing all the balances, including the diplomatic one," said Tzahi Hanegbi, the head of the parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee.
But Mr Hanegbi did not provide specific details, adding only that Mr Olmert "needs to see the big picture, and the big picture is that there is a meaning to sometimes waiting a half a day, or a day. You need to exhaust all the options."
There has been no sign of life from Cpl Shalit since he was snatched by militants in a raid on an Israeli army post on Sunday. The working assumption of the defence establishment is that he is alive and is being held somewhere in southern Gaza.
In remarks published yesterday in the leading pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said that Palestinian militants had agreed to the conditional release of the kidnapped soldier, but that Israel had yet to accept their terms. But Israeli officials said they had no information of any deal. Mr Olmert has declared several times since Cpl Shalit's capture that he will not negotiate with militants for his release.
An opinion poll published yesterday suggests that a sizeable portion of the Israeli public is not convinced of the logic of military action. The survey, in Yediot Ahronoth, showed that 53 per cent of Israelis believe the best way to win Cpl Shalit's release is through "negotiation and international pressure"; only 43 per cent wanted military action.