Israeli helicopter gun-ships fired rockets at multiple targets in Gaza City early Sunday, including a building used by Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.
One rocket struck in the neighbourhood of Sejahiya, the security sources said, next to an office belongs to Islamic Jihad, which had been under assault by Israeli forces for large parts of Saturday.
Two people were wounded in the attack which caused substantial damage to the building, which is near Jihad's office.
A second helicopter later fired two rockets in the Nasser neighbourhood of Gaza City, hitting the offices of Islamic newspaper Al Rissalah, according to an AFP correspondent on the scene. One person was injured in that attack which also seriously damaged the building.
An Israeli military spokesman refused to comment on the attack.
Israel tried but failed to assassinate a leader of Islamic Jihad, Mohammed al-Hindi in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, after the radical Islamic group killed 11 of its soldiers this week.
Another senior Islamic Jihad member, Mohammad al-Sheikh Khalil, who heads up its military wing in southern Gaza, also escaped unharmed from a later air strike in Rafah, security sources and witnesses said.
The Israeli army said the Rafah air strike was a successful targeting of an explosives lab.
ISRAELIS RALLY FOR PULL OUT:
TEL AVIV: More than 100,000 Israelis rallied for a pullout from the Gaza Strip and helicopters hit Palestinian targets at the end of a week in which the Middle East's mightiest army suffered its heaviest blow in two years.
Several bystanders were wounded in the missile strikes early on Sunday against an office affiliated with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah group and another belonging to a pro-Hamas newspaper, witnesses said.
In a historic political twist, Israel's long dormant "peace camp" packed the Tel Aviv square where warrior-turned-peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 and held signs reading "Arik we are with you", rallying around right-wing leader Ariel Sharon and his Gaza withdrawal plan.
Political commentators said the strong turnout could harden the prime minister's resolve to press ahead with his proposal to evacuate all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank despite its rejection by his Likud party.
"I'm here because we can't take it any more," protester Tali Rosen, 34, said amid a sea of banners while peace songs played. "What got me out of the house was the deaths of the soldiers."
COURT GIVES GREEN LIGHT:
JERUSALEM: The Israeli supreme court on Sunday rejected an appeal by Palestinians against the army's plan to destroy hundreds more homes in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, judicial sources told AFP.
Judges ruled that the army could continue its demolitions, which it said have been carried out for justifiable "operational reasons" and were not a form of collective punishment.
Rafah residents were seeking a freeze to the demolition campaign, which according to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), has already left more than 1,000 Rafah residents homeless since late last week.
The Palestinians reacted furiously to the verdict with veteran leader Yasser Arafat accusing Israel of continuing its "cruel aggression" against his people and the cabinet accusing the Jewish state of embarking on "ethnic cleansing".
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