<B>HAMAS?S</B> political leader Khaled Meshaal warned all Israelis, from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to ordinary people, that they would not be safe after Israel?s killing of the group?s founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Meshaal hardened earlier threats that the Palestinian Islamic militant group would target Sharon to avenge the assassination of the wheelchair-bound cleric in a missile strike outside a Gaza City mosque on Monday.

In his warning to all Israelis, the Syria-based Meshaal told Reuters in a telephone interview on Wednesday: ?There will be no safety so long as there is occupation. If they want safety they should leave.?

Hamas, sworn to wipe out Israel, wants the Jewish state and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip for a future Palestinian state. Meshaal said any Hamas attacks would be confined to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Meshaal, who survived a 1997 Israeli attempt to kill him by injecting him with a drug during a daylight attack by undercover agents in Jordan, said Israelis could not win the conflict.

?Your leaders, chaired by Sharon, will only bring you destruction. Blood begets blood. The Palestinian people can endure a long struggle and if you think that the confrontation will exhaust it then you are deluded. You will lose.?

Asked if Sharon was a target, Meshaal said: ?It is the right of the resistance to target the leaders of the enemy, the heads of Zionist terrorism...it is a matter of right and duty.?

The US government had earlier warned Americans in the Middle East and North Africa of a heightened attack threat after Yassin?s assassination, saying it had been prompted by comments from a Hamas spokesman. Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and ambush attacks since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.

In Gaza, Israeli tanks and troops pushed some 200 metres into the Khan Younis refugee camp early on Thursday and bulldozed 10 homes after the residents fled, leaving about 60 people homeless, residents said. An Israeli army spokeswoman said it was a small-scale operation in response to rockets fired by Palestinians, echoing a similar raid on Wednesday.

An Israeli helicopter gunship also fired a missile at a Palestinian police post in Khan Younis in what an army spokesman said was a strike on a group of gunmen. Two Palestinians were wounded in clashes before the army column withdrew.

Meshaal said he remained the political bureau chief of Hamas and would not assume Yassin?s place.

?There is no change in the hierarchy. The martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin had a symbolic stature among Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims that goes beyond the limits of Hamas...this cannot be inherited,? said Meshaal.

In New York, Israel urged the United Nations to call a special session to deplore terrorism as Arab nations pressed the Security Council to condemn the Jewish state for killing Yassin.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom visited UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and called Yassin the ?godfather of the suicide bombers?. Algeria, representing Arab nations, introduced an amended Security Council draft resolution condemning the assassination and ?also all terrorist attacks against any civilians?.

A vote on the draft, still subject to change, was scheduled for Thursday at 2100 GMT, but Washington made clear it would veto any measure that did not specifically condemn Hamas.