Israeli planes struck the Gaza Strip yesterday and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved a major ground offensive in the West Bank after a suicide attack killed five Israelis. Security sources said Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz decided on a large scale military operation in the northern West Bank against Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for Wednesday?s bombing. Israel would also hit Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip, the sources said. ?We will do everything we can to strike out the infrastructure of the organisation that carried out this act of terror,? Mofaz told reporters. No timetable was given for the West Bank offensive.

Islamic Jihad said the attack was to avenge Israel?s killing of one of its top West Bank commanders in a raid on Monday. The 20-year-old bomber came from a town in the northern West Bank. Israeli aircraft launched three strikes on the Gaza Strip early on yesterday in what the army said were attacks aimed at stopping militants firing rockets into the Jewish state from the territory. There were no reports of casualties. It was the third day of air raids in the worst flare-up of violence since Israel withdrew from Gaza last month after 38 years of occupation.

Market bomber

The suicide bomber launched the attack in front of a sandwich stand in the main outdoor market in Hadera, a frequent target of attacks in a 5-year-old Palestinian uprising. Medics said five people were killed and 30 were wounded. The attack was the first bombing in the Jewish state since Aug 28, when a suicide bomber wounded 20 people in Beersheba. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the bombing and pledged to try to salvage the truce he engineered earlier this year. ?It harms the interest of the Palestinian people and leads to expansion of the cycle of violence,? he said.

Israel, which suspended security contacts after three young Jewish settlers were killed in a West Bank ambush last week, cancelled a meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian transport ministers. Islamic Jihad, sworn to Israel?s destruction, had vowed revenge after Israeli troops shot dead West Bank commander Loai Assadi, the most senior militant killed since the truce began.

Israel and the United States said the Palestinian Authority needed to rein in militants to push forward stalled peace talks. Abbas has so far preferred to negotiate with armed groups.

?The Palestinians need to prepare some real action to stop terrorism if they want to move the process forward,? said a top Israeli official, who declined to be identified. ?They condemn every attack and we bury our dead.? Leaders from Islamic Jihad and several other militant groups in Gaza rejoiced at news of the bombing and vowed to continue responding to Israeli attacks against Palestinians despite the ceasefire. Asked about Abbas?s condemnation of the bombing, an Islamic Jihad spokesman said: ?Anyone who criticises the resistance is a violator of the national consensus and stands beside the enemy.?

Nidal AL-MUGHRABI

IRAN

President Ahmadinejad wants Israel ?wiped off the map?

■ Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Israel should be ?wiped off the map?, the official IRNA news agency reported. Support for the Palestinian cause is a central pillar of the Islamic Republic which officially refuses to recognize Israel?s right to exist. ?Israel must be wiped off the map,? Ahmadinejad told a conference called ?The World without Zionism?, attended by some 3,000 conservative students who chanted ?Death to Israel? and ?Death to America?. Under reformist President Mohammad Khatami, whose eight-year tenure ended earlier this year, Iran had shown signs of easing its implacable hostility toward Israel. Officials said Tehran might not object to a two-state solution if that was what the Palestinians wanted. But Ahmadinejad, a former member of the hard-line Revolutionary Guards and traditional religious conservative, said there could be no let-up in its hostility to Israel. ?The Islamic world will not let its historic enemy live in its heartland,? he said. White House Spokesman Scott McClellan said Washington took such remarks seriously. ?It underscores the concerns we have about Iran?s nuclear intentions,? he told reporters. The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear arms, but Tehran says it needs atomic fuel only for power stations. Iran has developed ballistic missiles able to hit Israel.Tehran denies accusations it trains and arms Palestinian militant groups, saying it offers only moral support. French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy said he had summoned Iran?s ambassador to explain the comments. ?If these (reported) comments are true, they are unacceptable. I condemn them with the greatest firmness,? he said in a statement. Iran?s ambassador to Madrid will also be summoned to explain the remarks. ?...Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has expressed his rejection in the most emphatic terms and has decided to urgently call in the Iranian ambassador to ask him for an explanation,? the ministry said in a statement.