Israel fears new uprising by Palestinians

TEL AVIV — Fears of a new Palestinian “intifada,” or uprising, have been stoked by a shooting rampage that left dead eight Israelis at a Jerusalem yeshiva, raising the death toll from militant attacks since Jan. 1 above the total for all of last year.

Israel’s army yesterday closed Palestinian areas of the West Bank and banned young men from attending Friday services at the mosques on the Temple Mount in the Old City.

After hours of silence, Hamas took responsibility for the carnage Thursday inside the prominent Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, or Jewish seminary, the Ha’aretz newspaper reported on its Web site. But the Associated Press later reported that Hamas had backtracked on their claim.

“There may be a later announcement. But we don’t claim this honor yet,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ military wing.

The attack came on the heels of an Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip that Palestinian officials say killed more than 120, including a disputed number of civilians. The campaign targeted militants who have been barraging southern Israel with rockets. Four Israelis have also been killed in fighting since last week.

After the number of Israeli fatalities from militant attacks dropped to a pre-intifada low of 13 for all of 2007, the eight deaths on Thursday pushed the toll in the first three months of this year to 14, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry Web site.

The site lists six persons killed earlier this year, including two soldiers who died in an exchange of gunfire with Hamas militants during a March 1 operation in northern Gaza.

Government officials expressed concern that the string of militant successes — from the worst terrorist attack in four years in Jerusalem, to a suicide bombing in the southern city of Dimona, to the continued rocket barrage on cities near the Gaza Strip — is liable to inspire additional violence.

“Unfortunately, that is the desire of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They want a new wave of violence in Israeli cities and a new wave of terror,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

“This should not come as a surprise. Ever since [the] Annapolis [peace talks in November], terrorist groups have said they would take steps to destroy this process.”

Concern over emboldened Palestinian attacks prompted calls yesterday for the Olmert government to abandon negotiations and take more-aggressive steps against the militants.

Speaking before thousands who attended a memorial service at the site of the shooting — a yeshiva that pioneered the ideological mix of Orthodox Judaism and nationalism that inspired the settler movement — religious speakers called for a no-holds-barred war on terrorists.

“There was a clear message: that there’s a need to embark on an all-out war to rein in terror,” Rabbi Yacov Shetenberg, a member of the yeshiva faculty, told Israel Radio. “At the funeral, all of the yeshiva heads said we need to stop talking and to start fighting.”

Parliament member Yuval Steinitz of the right-wing Likud party concurred, warning that if Israel doesn’t retake the Gaza Strip and deal a decisive blow to Hamas, “everything is possible.”

“The fact that Hamas took over Gaza, and has succeeded in setting up a base like Hezbollah, encourages terrorists in Judea and Samaria,” he said, referring to the West Bank.

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