Israeli tanks firing machineguns pushed into Gaza Strip today and killed one Palestinian in a retaliatory raid for the first deadly cross-border rocket strike from the area that Israel plans to abandon.
Troops besieged Beit Hanoun, barely two kilometres from the Israeli town of Sderot, where makeshift missiles fired by Hamas Islamic militants killed a three-year-old-boy outside a kindergarten and a 49-year-old man yesterday.
Similar rockets wounded two people inside Israel today, intensifying a surge of violence that has complicated Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to pull Jewish settlers out of the occupied Gaza Strip next year.
The casualties have fuelled anxiety in the Jewish state that leaving Gaza would not stop it being used as a base for attacks - one of the main arguments of the pullout plan's opponents.
Israeli troops and tanks opened fire as they cut off roads into the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, a regular launching ground for rockets. They shot dead a top Hamas commander.
Gunfire crackled nearby as thousands of mourners chanted "we will sacrifice our souls for you" at Rasem Odwan's funeral.
Israeli political sources said it could be a prolonged raid into Beit Hanoun, where the rubble of demolished homes and ground scraped clear by bulldozers mark previous attempts by Israel to stop rocket launches.