Six Palestinians Killed In Israeli Military Strike

JERUSALEM, Aug. 14 -- Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday killed six Palestinians, most of them armed, as troops seeking information on militant forces rounded up area residents for interrogation.

In a separate development, former Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu appeared to handily win leadership of the Likud Party.

The military launched a raid before dawn in the southern part of the strip, sending troops into Khan Younis and dispatching the air force, Israeli officials said. At least one airstrike hit men from the militant group Islamic Jihad as they exited a car, officials said.

Maj. Tal Lev-Ram, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said troops rounded up all males in the area ages 16 to 40 for interrogation. About 100 people were detained. A smaller operation was launched in the town of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said most of those killed in fighting Tuesday were members of the armed wing of the militant group Hamas, which took control of Gaza in June after battles with the rival Fatah movement. Palestinian sources, however, said civilians were among the fatalities. The governor of Khan Younis, Osama El-Farra, condemned the Israeli operation.

"This is a new crime against our innocent Palestinian people, coming at a time when great efforts are being made both on the international and the Palestinian level together with the Israelis to prevent a deterioration of the situation," he said in a statement.

During the operation, Israeli forces razed agricultural land, uprooting fruit trees and destroying some greenhouses that the military has said are being used as hideouts by fighters from Hamas and other groups.

Also on Tuesday, Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, said it would be a mistake for the international community to try to bridge differences between Hamas and the Fatah faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Her statement came a day after a British parliamentary committee said that Britain's refusal to speak to Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in January 2006, is counterproductive and that efforts should be made to form a new unity Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza.

"I know that it looks tempting and I know that the international community is eager to see a kind of an understanding between Hamas and Fatah," Livni said at a news conference with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso. "This is wrong. This is a mistake. Big mistake. Huge."

In the Likud election, Netanyahu received 73 percent of the vote, while his closest opponent, Moshe Feiglin, a West Bank settler, received 23 percent. According to recent opinion polls, if elections were to be held in Israel today, Netanyahu would easily be elected prime minister.

Netanyahu, who served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, has long taken a hard line on issues related to Palestinians. He recently tried to revive a proposal calling for Jordan, most of whose residents are of Palestinian descent, and the West Bank to enter into a "confederation" that would bind them together economically, politically and on security matters.