Israeli Shelling Kills Police Officer in Gaza

GAZA CITY, April 9 -- Israeli artillery pounded the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing a Palestinian police officer and wounding several other people, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli army said the shelling was in response to Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza into Israel over the weekend.

The shelling set fire to a plastics factory and hit a house, wounding at least seven people, Palestinian officials said. Students evacuated a school near the border with Israel.

The stepped-up strikes come less than two weeks after the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas -- which rejects Israel's right to exist -- took control of the government. Over the weekend, Israel began firing artillery at rocket-launching sites in populated areas.

Top Israeli security officials, meanwhile, recommended cutting all ties with the Hamas-led government and ruled out peace talks with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as long as Hamas refuses to renounce violence, while saying there would be "no personal boycott" of Abbas, who heads the rival Fatah movement.

Israeli air and ground strikes have killed 15 Palestinians since Friday, including a child. No Israelis were wounded in Palestinian rocket fire over the weekend.

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the military has been given a free hand to act against militants.

The military wing of Hamas condemned the "dangerous escalation" and vowed revenge.

"We warn the government of this monstrous entity against committing more crimes, because this will provoke more destruction and escalated military attacks against them and their people," the military wing said on the Hamas Web site.

The police officer killed Sunday, Yasser Abu Jarad, 28, was trying to evacuate colleagues from a makeshift military post when a shell hit his car, Palestinian officials said. The army said it had warned Palestinian security officers posted near launching sites that they could be in danger from Israeli retaliation.

Olmert has said he will unilaterally pull out of large parts of the West Bank while annexing large Jewish settlement blocs in the territory if Hamas does not change its stance toward Israel and peace talks.

Hamas has said repeatedly it will not revise its positions, though some leaders of the group have hinted at a readiness to moderate.

Separately, the Israeli Justice Ministry said Sunday that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma for three months, would be declared permanently incapacitated Tuesday, a decision that will signal the official end of his tenure as Israel's leader.