Middle East: Israel yesterday demonstrated its intention to keep on targeting all members of Hamas, by blowing up the Gaza home of a top official, Mahmoud al-Zahar.
Mr al-Zahar (58), described by Israeli officials as someone "at the top of the Hamas pyramid" who gave approval for attacks on Israelis, was standing in his doorway and thrown clear, escaping with light injuries. But his son and one bodyguard were killed, and his wife badly hurt.
After hospital treatment he went into hiding, but vowed in a telephone interview with an Arabic TV station that Hamas would not be broken. "Tens and hundreds have been martyred before us, and the banner of jihad and martyrdom has remained."
As the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, cut short a visit to India and headed home overnight, some of his security chiefs and ministerial colleagues were urging him to launch a major troop incursion into Hamas strongholds in the Gaza Strip. There were renewed calls, too, for Mr Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority President whom Israel holds responsible for encouraging the bombers, to be sent into exile.
Mr Sharon is believed to be reluctant to take this step, however, because it would bring him into direct confrontation with Israel's firmest ally, the US.
Hamas has described Tuesday's suicide bombings - at a bus-stop near an army base outside Tel Aviv and, less than six hours later, in a packed Jerusalem café - as the first in a series of revenge attacks for Israel's failed effort to kill a group of 10 top Hamas figures by bombing the Gaza home where they were meeting on Saturday.
And after Mr al-Zahar's home was destroyed by a bomb dropped from an F-16 yesterday, the Hamas military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, said it would respond by "targeting houses and Zionist towers everywhere in occupied Palestine".
Late on Tuesday night, as news broke of the Jerusalem café bombing, large numbers of Gazans came out into the streets and held celebratory marches. After the attack on Mr al-Zahar's home yesterday, thousands more took to the streets demanding "Death to Israel."
Tuesday's bombers, who joined Hamas as students at Birzeit University, both came from the West Bank village of Rantisi, where the Israeli army yesterday arrested several of their relatives, including both of their fathers. The two - Ramez Abu Isleem (24) and Ihab Abdel Kader (20) - had been jailed by Israel in one of its round-ups but were released after a few weeks.
Mr Ahmed Korei yesterday formally confirmed that he had accepted the post of PA prime minister and said he would assemble an emergency cabinet team. He condemned the bombings, expressing "our regrets and pain for the innocent lives (lost) as a result of violence and counter-violence". The deaths underlined the need for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to together "search for ways to end this killing", he said.