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Mideast violence widens
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ISRAEL vowed yesterday to keep its forces in autonomous Palestinian areas it occupied in the Gaza Strip after a spate of mortar attacks, as fears grew of an escalation of hostilities on both the Palestinian and Lebanese fronts.
Israeli forces attacked Palestinian security targets in the Gaza Strip, using helicopter gunships, tanks and bulldozers.
The shelling continued yesterday morning, killing a member of the Palestinian security forces near Beit Hanun in the north of the Gaza Strip, one of the areas that came under fire overnight.
A total of 27 people were wounded in the raids, according to medical officials.
With Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledging to use a tough hand to end the violence, Israel has launched a series of raids against Palestinian targets in recent days in an escalating cycle of strike and counter-strike.
The Israeli army has taken control of part of the northern Gaza Strip that was bombarded overnight and sliced the narrow swathe of land into three by blocking main roads.
"We will continue our operations as necessary while there is still Palestinian mortar fire against Israeli towns," army spokesman Brigadier General Ron Kitrey told army radio.
He said the army had taken control of sectors in the Gaza Strip that represent a "direct threat", as well as two corridors traversing the area between Israeli territory and the Mediterranean Sea.
"It is not an occupation, but rather control of a strip of land several hundred metres wide, at one point one kilometre in the north-eastern Gaza Strip," he said on public radio.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the army had "no intention" of remaining in sectors under the control of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's self-rule authority.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer has warned that the situation could deteriorate following the escalation of violence in the Palestinian territories and a new flare-up on the Lebanese front.
On Monday, Israeli warplanes attacked a Syrian military radar site in Lebanon, killing at least one Syrian soldier, in retaliation for a deadly weekend attack by guerrillas of Lebanon's fundamentalist group Hezbollah on an Israeli military position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area.
"The situation is not going to get easier, rather more difficult, perhaps even an all-out regional deterioration," Ben Eliezer was quoted as saying by the Maariv newspaper.
The widening conflict brought condemnation from the United States and calls from the United Nations for a return to peace talks.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher condemned what he called a "dangerous escalation" in Middle East violence and blamed Hezbollah for provoking the Israeli air strikes on the Syrian target.
Syria, as well as Lebanon, the Palestinians and others in the Arab world, have protested vehemently against the strike and warned that it could lead to a regional war.
European nations, including Britain, France and Germany, have expressed deep concern over the attack and the chance that it could lead to a serious deterioration.
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