VARIOUS : Hamas publishes video of rocket launching after letal attack on Sderot as Israel pledges to pound Islamic group

Hamas releases video of rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel. A man in the southern Israeli town of Sderot is killed after a rocket lands near his car. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government says it will pursue anybody responsible for launching rockets. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni meets with the U.N. Special envoy for the Middle East. Arrested Palestinian Parliament speaker appears in Israeli court hearing. The military wing of Hamas released a video of rockets launching on Sunday (May 27), a few hours after a Hamas rocket attack from Gaza killed a man in Israel and wounded another. The Islamic group's military said it had promoted members of the squad that launched the rocket into the southern town of Sderot, where it exploded on a street, spraying shrapnel into a car causing its driver to slam into a wall. Thirty-six-year-old Oshri Oz from central Israel was the second Israeli to die in a rocket attack in a nearly two-week-old surge in violence. With no end in sight to cross-border bloodshed any resumption of peacemaking seems remote. During the weekly cabinet session in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged unlimited military action against the militant group, saying "no one involved in terror" would be immune. "I want to emphasise that there is no immunity for anybody involved in terror, nobody will have immunity, clear and simple," Olmert said. Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisen told Reuters the Israeli government would remain active against Hamas. "Israel will not sit idle while the Hamas continue their attacks. We will seek out every rocket launcher, every rocket team. We will go after those who fire the rockets, those who make the rockets - those who smuggle-in the weapons into the Gaza Strip. We will defend our citizens. We do not have a foolproof method against the rockets, but we will give the best defence we can to our citizens, and no terrorist should feel immune from our seeking them out," Eisen said. Though there were no diplomatic breakthroughs, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with new U.N. Special Envoy Michael Williams to discuss the problems in the region. A meeting of the so-called Quartet of Middle East negotiators is expected to meet in Germany later in the week. Williams is expected to brief leaders at the meeting. Israel also detained two Palestinian cabinet ministers of Hamas, along with 33 other group members, during a recent raid in the West Bank earlier this week. Israel conducted similar raids last year in a bid to put pressure on Hamas after it won the parliamentary election. Hamas had led a suicide bombing campaign against the Jewish state for years, including during a Palestinian uprising in 2000. One of last year's detainees, Hamas leader and Palestinian Parliament Speaker Aziz Dweik, was brought to a military court in the West Bank on Sunday for a hearing. "Where is the democratic world? While they see over 40 Palestinian lawmakers, who were democratically elected, are imprisoned in Israeli jails. Where is the free word? where are the consciences which should support our right?" Dweik said to cameras in the courtroom before the hearing started. Forty Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed in Israeli attacks since the recent spate of rocket attacks began. But Israeli leaders have stopped short of any explicit threat of a ground offensive in Gaza. The Israeli Army has moved some tanks, armoured bulldozers, and armoured personnel carriers just over the border into Gaza, but has not yet launched a deep incursion into the territory. Gaza militants have fired more than 220 rockets at Israel since May 15, the Israeli army said. The rocket that killed the man in Sderot, Hamas's armed wing said, was its answer to "those who described the attacks as pointless" -- a reference to recent comments made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Fatah and Hamas, which has spurned Western demands to recognise Israel and renounce violence, formed a unity government two months ago. The spike in rocket strikes against Israel has been accompanied by a dramatic decrease in recent Hamas-Fatah fighting in which more than 50 Palestinians have died.

ITN Source | May 27, 2007

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