Israel has warned the newly elected Palestinian prime minister that he could become a target for assassination.
Israel's defence minister Shaul Mofaz identified the Hamas prime minister-designate, Ismail Haniyeh, as a potential target for an Israeli attack.
Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz's warning to Hamas, recently elected to rule the Palestinian Authority, was the first to identify Mr Haniyeh as a potential target for an Israeli attack.
"No one is immune," Mr Mofaz told Army Radio, a day after an Israeli airstrike on an ice cream truck killed three children and two Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza City. One of the dead was eight years old.
Israel's policy of targeted killings has proven effective, and will continue, Mr Mofaz claimed.
"There is no question about its efficacy," he said. "Look what happened to Hamas in the years it conducted an untrammelled suicide bombing war against us. When we started the targeted killings, the situation changed," he said, referring to Hamas suspension of attacks.
"If Hamas, a terror organisation that doesn't recognise agreements with us and isn't willing to renounce violence, presents us with the challenge of having to confront a terror organisation, then no one there will be immune. Not just Ismail Haniyeh. No one will be immune."
Haniyeh brushed aside Mr Mofaz's warnings and accused Israel of trying to disrupt the formation of a Hamas-led government. "The continued escalation aims to shed more Palestinian blood, confuse the situation and hamper . . . the formation of the Palestinian government," he said.
Israeli air force chief Maj General Eliezer Shakedi has claimed the number of Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli airstrikes fell in 2005 to one for every 28 militants slain. A year earlier, one civilian died for every 12 militants killed, he claimed.