GAZA CITY, July 26: Israeli tanks stormed a town outside Gaza City on Friday, blowing up alleged rocket factories and destroying a police post in the first operation here since a controversial air strike, sources on both sides said.

Israel also renewed its offer to resume a dialogue with the Palestinians, who remained sceptical, while militants vowed to avenge the aerial bombing of a teeming Gaza City neighbourhood that killed 15 people, including nine children, on Monday.

In Gaza City, some 5,000 supporters of the Hamas held a demonstration and promised to avenge their military leader, Salah Shehade, who was targeted by the bloody strike.

“Our response will be like an earthquake,” said senior Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, adding that the rally was a pledge of allegiance to the new chief of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, who was not named.

Security was tight across Israel on Friday, as people braced for the expected retaliation. Curfews in most of the occupied major West Bank towns were in force throughout the day after being sporadically eased previously.

In Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli troops who were carrying out house-to-house searches in his neighbourhood, Palestinian medical sources said.

In the Gaza Strip seven Israeli tanks and three bulldozers stormed al-Zeitun, south of Gaza City, moving nearly one kilometre into Palestinian-controlled territory, security sources and witnesses said.

Four Palestinians were injured, two seriously, as a fierce gunbattle erupted during the incursion, medical sources said, adding a woman was among the casualties.

The Israeli army confirmed the raid in a statement, saying its troops “destroyed 22 machines used for making Qassam rockets and blew up the three buildings where they were produced”.

Troops destroyed a Palestinian security position and two other buildings, including a domestic gas delivery depot and a house, Palestinian security sources said.

The Israeli army said a Palestinian rocket was fired on a bus carrying Jewish settlers near Netzarim but no injuries were reported.

In another incident on Friday, four Palestinians were injured near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip when Israeli troops opened fire, medical sources said.

The incident occurred after reports of a Palestinian mortar attack on Israeli positions in the same area. The incursion near Neztarim also came after the army reported Qassam rockets had been fired at Israeli targets, including one which landed in a kibbutz inside Israel on Thursday.

Violence flared anew three days after Israel struck the man credited with playing a crucial role in producing the rockets, which have enabled Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip to hit targets inside Israel.

Shehade, military commander of the radical Hamas group, was killed on Monday in a raid which also left 13 civilians dead and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government under a barrage of criticism.

Condemnations of Israel’s policy of extra-judicial killings continued from around the world after an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb on a densely populated area of Gaza City to kill Shehade.

Sharon’s government, which has insisted that Israel was not aware of the risk for civilians, also faced accusations of having deliberately sabotaged embryonic peace talks and moves by Palestinian militant groups towards a truce.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, on a visit to Paris, complained to his French counterpart Jacques Chirac that Sharon wanted to “torpedo all initiatives” aimed at bringing Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table.—AFP