An Israeli missile strike on a van in Gaza carrying militants and rockets killed 11 Palestinians, nine of them civilians, on Tuesday in the deadliest such attack in nearly four years.
The air strike signaled that Israel would not flinch from targeting rocket squads in densely populated areas in spite of an outcry over the deaths of seven Palestinians on a Gaza beach on Friday in a blast militants blamed on Israeli shellfire.
'We have been showing restraint due to the international storm caused by the incident on the Gaza beach, but no longer,' Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz was quoted by the YNet news Web site as telling reporters in northern Israel.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the missile attack 'state terrorism.' The high civilian toll was certain to set militant groups, already skirmishing between themselves, on a course of fiercer confrontation with Israel.
At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday he had approved a shipment of weapons to forces loyal to Abbas to bolster him against his rivals in Hamas, the Islamic militant group that now heads the Palestinian government.
Israel said it targeted the Gaza van because it was carrying powerful armaments.
'The car that we hit was loaded with Katyusha rockets and launchers and they were on their way to launch those Katyusha rockets at Israel,' an army spokeswoman said after the attack in the eastern outskirts of Gaza City.
Witnesses said an Israeli aircraft fired two missiles. The first hit the vehicle, causing it to crash into the pavement. A second hit as a crowd gathered and rescuers arrived.
Hospital officials said nine civilians, including two children and two medics, were killed as well as two Islamic Jihad militants. About 30 people were wounded.
'Today we have said farewell to our martyrs and tomorrow Israel will say farewell to their dead,' Islamic Jihad said.
Rockets could be clearly seen in the wreckage. The Israeli army said the projectiles could hit targets up to 20 km (12 miles) away, a range far greater than that of the crude Qassam rockets usually fired by militants from Gaza.
Militants have fired more than 100 rockets into Israel since the Gaza beach explosion, the army said. Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of Gaza last year and has said it will not tolerate cross-border rocket attacks.
ISRAELI INQUIRY
Chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Dan Halutz, said an investigation of the timing of Israeli shelling of Gaza beach and the shrapnel taken from victims showed that his forces were not to blame for Friday's blast.
'We can say, surely, that the IDF is not responsible for the incident,' Halutz told a news conference, flanked by Peretz.
No clear explanation was provided for what did cause the explosion, but the head of the investigation, Major General Meir Califi, suggested Palestinian militants might have been responsible.
A spokesman for the Hamas-led Interior Ministry described Israel's denial of responsibility as a fabrication.
'The Israeli denial is an additional crime,' Khalid Abu Hilal told Reuters.
Blaming Israel for Friday's explosion, Hamas declared an end to a 16-month truce with the Jewish state. The group, dedicated to Israel's destruction, was responsible for nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.
In the West Bank, more violence flared between Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas. Fatah members set fire to two Hamas offices and fired at a facility belonging to Hamas, witnesses said.
In Nablus, unknown gunmen fired at a building belonging to a Hamas-backed association but caused no casualties.
The intra-Palestinian tension has been inflamed by a referendum that Abbas has called for July 26 on his vision of a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel. Hamas does not recognize Israel and has labeled the referendum a coup attempt.