Netanyahu Sweeps Likud Primary In Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu has swept the race for leader of Israel's hardline Likud Party, Likud executive director Gad Arieli said late Tuesday, citing interim results.

The partial tally gave 75 percent of the vote to Netanyahu and 20 percent to far-right West Bank settler Moshe Feiglin. A third candidate, World Likud Chairman Danny Danon, took 5 percent.

Final results were expected early Wednesday.

Netanyahu has soared in the polls since last summer's inconclusive Lebanon war, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger,
while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's popularity has plunged. If Olmert's fragile government collapses, early elections could take place next year.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops and aircraft attacked Islamic militants in the southern Gaza Strip Tuesday, killing two Hamas fighters and two civilians and wounding 15 people, Hamas and Palestinian medical officials said.

Hamas said one of its men died in a pre-dawn air strike, east of the town of Khan Younis, and a second was killed along with his 70-year-old mother when ground troops fired at their house.

An Israeli army statement said that in an operation against "terror threats" from the southern Gaza Strip, forces fired at armed militants in four separate incidents and hit the targets on each occasion. A spokesman said aircraft carried out three attacks and ground forces shot a gunman posing a threat to soldiers.

Berger reports the Israeli Army said the operation was aimed at preventing Palestinian rocket fire and finding a tunnel network which could be used to infiltrate Israel.

Israeli Army Radio said troops were rounding up all local males above the age of 16 and interrogating them for information on militants.

Palestinian medical officials said a second civilian, Ibrahim al-Shami, 40, was shot dead by soldiers when he went out onto the roof of his house and that of a total of 15 people wounded, seven were civilians.

The army often carries out raids into Gaza to target militants and to thwart rocket fire toward Israeli towns.

The military said Palestinians fired a rocket from the northern Gaza Strip toward Israel on Tuesday morning. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

Also Tuesday, four Palestinians slipped into Israel through the heavily guarded Israel-Gaza border fence, the army said. It was the second such infiltration in two days. Four suspects were apprehended in southern Israel and questioned, the army said.

It was not immediately clear if the Palestinians were militants or civilians looking for work in Israel.