Israel: Bolstered by the most explicit support to date from US President George Bush, who described the Israeli raid on a base in Syria on Sunday as "essential," Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, vowed yesterday that Israel would "hit its enemies in any place and in any way" to try to end suicide bombings and other attacks on its civilians.
Israel boosted troop deployment near its northern border with Lebanon, following the killing of an Israeli soldier by a Lebanese gunman on Monday night, and was last night reported to be contemplating a major call-up of reservists to the West Bank, to cope with a "flood" of warnings about imminent further suicide bombings.
At the same time, however, Israeli officials insisted they wanted to avoid any further escalation of tensions, and the prime minister pledged that he would "not miss any opening" for peace.
Mr Sharon, who was addressing a memorial ceremony for Israeli soldiers killed 30 years ago in the 1973 Arab-Israel Yom Kippur War, spoke as the Israeli army released a map showing what it said were the political and military offices in Damascus of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other organisations outlawed by the EU and featuring on the US State Department's list of terrorist groups, and the homes of some of their leaders.
On Sunday, Israeli aircraft raided a base northwest of Damascus where it said Islamic Jihad operatives were trained, in response to a suicide bombing claimed by Islamic Jihad in Haifa on Saturday in which 19 Israelis died. Israeli officials said more raids into Syria were possible, if those groups were not evicted. "Syria, Iran and Lebanon" were engaged in "very dangerous moves," asserted Gen Benny Gantz, commander of Israeli forces in the north of the country.
"If these three states are not careful, the situation is likely to deteriorate." Still, his superior, the army's Chief of Staff, Gen Moshe Ya'alon, was calmer. "I don't think we are headed toward escalation," he said.
Syria, which denied that the base struck by Israel was still in use, also initially claimed that it no longer hosted the outlawed groups in its capital. But Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials yesterday acknowledged their continuing presence in Damascus, and said their key leaders alternated between Damascus and Beirut.
In his first public comments since the Israeli raid, Syria's President, Mr Bashar Assad, also acknowledged hosting the groups, saying he did not consider them terrorists, that their members had not broken Syrian law, and that they were "existing forces that you must deal with." Mr Assad charged in an interview with the Al-Hayat London daily that the air raid marked an attempt by the Israeli government to "terrorise Syria and drag it and the region into other wars."
Condemnation of the Israeli response has been widespread internationally, embracing Jordan and Egypt, with only the US administration firmly taking Israel's side.
In his most supportive comments yet, Mr Bush said the US "would be doing the same thing" to defend itself. But he also urged the prime minister to avoid creating conditions in which violence would spiral.
There is continuing fear of such spiralling violence on the Israeli-Lebanon border, where Israel yesterday held Hizbullah responsible for shooting dead an Israeli soldier on Monday. Hizbullah denied the charge.
Later on Monday, mortar shells were fired into Israel from southern Lebanon for the first time in over a year. And in the south Lebanese village of Houla, Ali Yassin, a four-year-old boy was killed by a missile which, security sources in Beirut told Reuters, was probably fired at Israel from inside Lebanon but fell short.
Twelve of the victims of the Haifa blast were buried yesterday, including the nine members of two families that bore the brunt of the fatalities - three generations of the Zer-Aviv family, among them a four-year-old boy and his one-year-old sister, and three-generations of the Almog family.
More than a dozen people injured in the attack, at the Arab-Jewish-owned Maxim beachfront restaurant, are still in hospital, including a three-year-old boy who is in critical condition.