Israeli forces killed at least eight alleged Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip today, a day after a suicide bombing in Israel claimed by the Islamist group.
Six of the men were killed by an air strike on a security post in southern Gaza and two other allegedly armed members of the movement were shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the border with Egypt.
A Palestinian girl waits with her family to cross into Egypt near the closed Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip
The Israeli military said it was responding to Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel.
A senior member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's party, Tzachi Hanegbi, urged the Israeli government to step up its fight against Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip in June, by assassinating the group's political leaders.
A Hamas security officer said its members were ordered to take "all necessary precautions", including turning off cellular phones that could be tracked by Israeli drones that routinely fly over the Gaza Strip.
Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility for the Dimona bombing, which killed an Israeli woman, a Hamas source in the Gaza Strip admitted. It was the first such attack claimed by the group since 2004.
The bomber and another attacker, shot by police before he could detonate his explosives belt, were also killed. The Hamas source said the two men came from the West Bank town of Hebron.
Despite the suicide attack, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held talks hours later in a reaffirmation of US-backed efforts to achieve a statehood deal.
Hamas, which opposes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's peace talks with Israel, called the Dimona bombing retaliation for Israeli raids.