Israel Braces For Suicide Attacks

Palestinian militants threatened Thursday to carry out more suicide bombings to avenge 15 Palestinians killed in Israeli raids, as tens of thousands of mourners led by gunmen marched in funeral processions.

The massive firing of assault rifles provided a steady, popping drumbeat as the processions snaked through Gaza City.

Israel is bracing for terrorist attacks, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger, saying it has intelligence warnings that 40 attacks are being planned.

Two Israeli raids in the strip on Wednesday resulted in the bloodiest day in more than a year. In new violence Thursday, a Hamas activist was killed by army fire, during an arrest raid in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israel has decided to boycott a world court session and not send a legal team to defend its construction of a West Bank separation barrier.

The decision, made by a committee of Cabinet ministers, came a day before all parties involved were to have informed the court whether they would send legal teams. The hearings before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, are to begin Feb. 23.

"The court isn't the right forum to deal with type of thing," said government legal adviser Alan Baker.

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader, said Israelis would "weep blood rather than tears." Similar threats in the past have been followed within hours or days by suicide bombings in Israel. In more than three years of fighting, 455 people have died in suicide bombings carried out by Hamas and other militant factions.

Some linked the stepped-up violence to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's proposals for a unilateral pullout from most of Gaza. Many Israelis, including the military's intelligence chief, are concerned a withdrawal might be viewed by Palestinians as a sign of weakness.

Israel's army will "continue to flex its muscles" with operations in the Gaza Strip, while Hamas will continue its efforts to take control of the area, wrote military analyst Ze'ev Schiff in the Haaretz newspaper Thursday.

Senior military officers have said privately that they believe there is a need to step up pressure on the Palestinians ahead of any withdrawal.

While the government is skipping the International Court of Justice session, many Israelis may be in The Hague demonstrating. The Jerusalem Post reports a private committee is offering Israelis cheap tickets to the Netherlands.

"It is important to stress this is not a political operation on our part," organizer Ervin Shahar told the Post. "Our sole aim is to protest against the IJC's authority to pass judgment on the security fence, the one-sidedness of the procedure."

In December, the U.N. General Assembly asked its highest tribunal to issue a non-binding ruling on the legality of Israel's separation barrier, a series of fences and walls built in the West Bank.

Israel says the obstacles, which will eventually stretch for 440 miles, are necessary to keep out suicide bombers. Palestinians charge that the barrier constitutes a land grab since it cuts deep into the West Bank at points.

Pope John Paul II repeated his criticism of Israel's planned security barrier Thursday, telling the Palestinian prime minister that the Holy Land needs "bridges not walls."

Israel protested when John Paul raised the issue in November, but the pope reiterated his criticism while receiving Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.

The pope said "the sad situation in the Holy Land is cause of suffering for all."

"No one must yield to the temptation of discouragement, let alone to hatred or retaliation. It is reconciliation that the Holy Land needs: forgiveness not revenge, bridges not walls."

Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, told Israel Radio that Israel's proposed withdrawal from the Gaza Strip highlights the failure of its military policy.

Sharon has said that if peace talks fail, he will remove up to 17 of 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza and imposing a temporary boundary in the West Bank. Israel captured the two areas, where the Palestinians hope to declare an independent state, in the 1967 Mideast war.

On Thursday, the Israeli military announced that soldiers discovered and blew up an explosives laboratory run by Hamas militants near Ramallah that was producing Qassam rockets. The rockets have a range of about five miles. If fired from the Ramallah area, the crude projectiles could strike Jerusalem.

Six men running the lab were arrested last month, the army said. The bomb factory contained gas canisters, a refrigerator rigged with explosives, fertilizer and rocket engines and one Qassam rocket was in a final phase of construction, the army announcement said.

The army said it was the second discovery of a rocket lab in the area. Until now, production of the inaccurate rockets was limited to the Gaza Strip.