Israel shelled the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday after the army warned Palestinians that it would declare a "no-go zone" to try to stop cross-border rocket fire by militants.
At least three shells landed after the new measure went into force at 6 pm (1600 GMT), but there was no immediate word of casualties. The army called the cannon fire a response to a Palestinian rocket launched at an Israeli border town.
Palestinians have condemned the new buffer zone, saying it was tantamount to re-occupying land Israel gave up in September when troops quit Gaza after 38 years of occupation.
"Israel has left the Gaza Strip and has no right to come back," President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters in Gaza. "They should not make any pretext."
There is no plan for ground forces to re-enter Gaza. The aim is to step up air strikes and shelling from land and sea, but that has so far done little to stop the militants from firing rockets into the Jewish state.
Rocket firing, which Palestinians say is retaliation for Israeli military action there and in the West Bank, is a political headache for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as he campaigns to win a third term on a platform of ending conflict.
Rightists who opposed Sharon's widely popular Gaza pullout argue the rocket fire proves that giving up any of the land that Palestinians want for a state will only bring more violence and cannot lead to peace.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Abbas's ruling Fatah faction, said it launched two rockets at an Israeli town and army base across the border. No damage was reported.
Maps dropped over Gaza by Israeli jets showed the zone was roughly similar to the area of evacuated Jewish settlements along the border. The army said the area was uninhabited, but Palestinians said many people would be affected.
"Anyone who will not heed this warning is placing his or her life in immediate danger," said notes accompanying the map.
Israeli planes fired missiles into Gaza early on Wednesday and the army said it had targeted rocket launch sites.
A day earlier, Abbas tried to get militant leaders in Gaza to agree to halt the cross-border rocket fire and renew a pledge to follow a cease-fire that brought 10 months of relative calm.
But a leader of Islamic Jihad, which has carried out suicide bombings despite the truce and fired regular rocket salvoes, said he did not believe there would be a ceasefire extension.
Any major surge in bloodshed could complicate Palestinian parliamentary elections in January and even force a delay.
Facing a strong challenge from Hamas Islamic militants in the vote, rival wings of Fatah agreed on Wednesday to submit a joint list of candidates and present a united front between veteran leaders and a young guard. But gunmen from a Fatah armed group dissatisfied with their representation on the new list traded fire with police at election offices in the Gaza Strip. One policeman was wounded.
Sharon has said he wants to pursue peacemaking with the Palestinians, but will discuss statehood only after the militant factions are disarmed -- something the Palestinians are meant to begin under a US-backed peace "road map".
Israel has failed to meet its own road map promise to freeze the expansion of Jewish settlements and Sharon has vowed to keep major blocs forever. The Palestinians fear that could deny them the state they seek in all the West Bank and Gaza.
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