An Israeli missile strike wounded a leader of the militant Islamic movement Hamas and killed his adult son and a bodyguard in the Gaza Strip this morning.
The Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Zahar, had been standing in the doorway of his two-storey house in Gaza City when it was attacked. He was thrown out by the blast and slightly wounded in the back of his head and his back, Hamas members said.
Zahar's wife was among about 20 people wounded, the medics said. They said she was seriously hurt.
The attack followed two Hamas suicide bombings in Israel which killed 15 people yesterday. It was the latest in a series of missile strikes intended to kill Hamas leaders following a wave of suicide bombings by Islamic militants.
Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in protest after the attack, which witnesses said was carried out by an Israeli warplane.
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The latest violence has left a US-backed Middle East peace plan in tatters. The plan aims to end almost three years of violence since the Palestinians rose up against Israeli occupation and to establish a Palestinian state by 2005.
Israel says it is carrying out the missile strikes because the Palestinian Authority has failed to crack down on the militants. Each side blames the other for the slide back into violence after the collapse of a truce last month.
Rescue workers were looking for more bodies in the wreckage of the house. Witnesses said there were two bodies at the morgue, and confirmed they were those of a bodyguard aged about 30 and Zahar's eldest son, Khaled, who is in his 20s.
Earlier Israel threatened to put Yasser Arafat in "solitary confinement" at his West Bank compound, cutting him off from the outside world.
Israeli officials indicated that proposals to re-impose a tight siege on the Palestinian president, already largely confined to his battered headquarters for nearly two years, are under close consideration as an alternative to exiling him.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cut short his visit to India and planned to fly home today. He told reporters after the first blast that it was "a reminder how terrorism must be fought, everywhere and with all means".
"The choice we face isn't expelling him or leaving the existing situation," Israel's Vice-Premier Mr Ehud Olmert, told Israel Radio.
"There is another alternative to bring him to a situation in which he will be in his headquarters as a prisoner in solitary confinement, isolated from his surroundings."
Officials have suggested that Israel could ring Mr Arafat's compound with tanks again as it did last year during a major ground offensive, cut the phone lines, disrupt mobile phone communications and prevent anyone from entering or leaving.
On his return, Mr Sharon planned to hold high-level security consultations, and Mr Arafat's fate was expected to be discussed.