JERUSALEM, Sept 2: Israel threatened on Thursday to launch a military attack on Syria, accusing Damascus of being directly involved in a double Hamas suicide attack that killed 16 people.
As Israel's top diplomats pressed their case that Damascus should pay the price for sheltering Hamas leaders, Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim dropped strong hints that a strike on Syrian targets could be imminent.
Syria dismissed the threat as lacking in credibility and denied any involvement in the bombings. Boim told public radio: "The rule that 'anyone who deals in terror against Israel is a target' is a rule that must be stated and one that we must stand behind."
He added that Israel would take care not to cause a "conflagration" on its northern border. "It is possible to launch operations, provided that the targets are well chosen and that the moment is right, in order to make the Syrians understand that there are red lines that cannot be crossed," he added.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom had earlier said Syria "is responsible for terrorist acts against us because this country is home of the headquarters of terrorist organizations and orders to carry out these attacks are given in Damascus."
Syria "must understand that this policy will have clear consequences ... If we believe that Damascus has crossed a red line we will act," he added. Sixteen people and the two bombers were killed on Tuesday in a double suicide attack in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the radical Islamist movement Hamas whose senior leader, Khaled Meshaal, is based in Damascus. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's official spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said "the order for the terrorist attacks comes directly from Khaled Meshaal's bureau based in Damascus".
But Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al Shara denied any link to the Beersheva attacks. "The Israeli threats against Syria are not based on any evidence and are completely lacking in credibility," he said in comments carried by the official SANA news agency.
"(Such menaces) raise tensions in the region," Shara said. The attacks in Beersheva were the deadliest since a suicide bombing in the port city of Haifa last October, which left 21 people and the female bomber dead, and they followed a period of relative calm.
Israel responded to that attack, carried out by the smaller Islamic Jihad organisation, with an air strike on an alleged Palestinian militant training camp deep inside Syria.
Meshaal was the target of an failed assassination bid by Israeli agents in Jordan in 1997. He emerged as undisputed leader earlier this year after Hamas co-founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor, Abdelaziz Rantissi, were both killed in Israeli air strikes.
As well as the threats of military action, Israeli diplomats are stepping up their efforts to convince other governments of Damascus's ties to Hamas. Danny Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to the United States, is to present Bush administration officials with intelligence information on the links. Shalom was expected to press the same message at talks with Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.
While officials were setting their sights on Damascus, the army also launched attacks in Hamas' traditional Gaza Strip stronghold. Three Palestinian teenagers were shot dead during an incursion in the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al Balah.
At least four Palestinians were also wounded on Wednesday when Israel helicopter gunships opened fire in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis during an army incursion. -AFP