Sharon Snubs Abbas After Bombing

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday he would not meet with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas unless the Palestinian Authority takes steps to stop militants from attacking Israelis.

Sharon spoke a day after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five Israelis in the town of Hadera.

Islamic Jihad said Wednesday's bombing was to avenge the killing of one of its West Bank leaders earlier in the week.

The suicide bombing embarrassed Abbas, who hours before the attack demanded the militant groups stop violating a cease-fire declared last February.

At a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Sharon said, "If the Palestinian Authority does not take serious and tangible action against terrorism, there will be no diplomatic progress and that would be a pity. In such a situation, I will not meet with Abu Mazen," as Abbas is known.

Sharon's snub follows the launch of an offensive against Islamic Jihad militants Thursday, what Sharon said would be a "broad and nonstop" response to a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis.

In an initial step, Israel carried out four air strikes in the Gaza Strip early Thursday, targeting open fields used by militants to fire rockets, the army said.

Israeli troops entered Jenin on the West Bank and arrested a local leader of Islamic Jihad. About 35 jeeps, backed by Apache helicopters, entered Jenin on Thursday afternoon, and troops surrounded the home of Abdel Khalim Izzadin. After a brief standoff, Izzadin and three other men surrendered to troops.

The Israeli forces then withdrew from Jenin, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger.

Israel said its offensive will include air and artillery attacks in Gaza, and arrest raids in the northern West Bank, where Wednesday's bomber came from, a military official said. As a last resort, tanks or infantry could re-enter Gaza, which Israel evacuated last month. Israeli media reported that troops would also retake Palestinian towns, and conduct house-to-house searches.

Fearing more attacks by Islamic Jihad, Israel sealed off its crossings with Gaza, and declared a complete closure on the West Bank. That kept laborers from entering Israel, keeps Palestinians from visiting relatives in Israeli prisons, and blocked Palestinian goods from exports. The closure came just a day after similar restrictions, in effect for the month-long period of Jewish holidays, had been lifted.

The Israeli response to the bombing in Hadera ratcheted up pressure on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to confront militant groups. Abbas has refused to crack down on armed groups such as Islamic Jihad, fearing civil war.

"There is no, let's say, government. There is no Palestinian Authority. There is only anarchy," said Israel Radio commentator Avi Sacharov.

In Qabatiyeh, the suicide bomber's hometown, the army arrested the attacker's father overnight along with four other Islamic Jihad militants, Palestinian security officials said. The army confirmed the arrests, but declined to say whether the bomber's father had been detained.

The bomber, Hassan Abu Zeid, 20, blew up at a food stand in Hadera's open-air marketplace, killing five Israelis and wounding 30. Three people remained in critical condition Thursday.

While the Palestinian Authority condemned the bombing, it has little control over Islamic Jihad, so the eight-month-old cease-fire is in danger of collapse, reports Berger.

Meanwhile, governments around the world expressed shock and scorn Thursday at the Iranian president's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map," and several summoned Tehran's envoys in their capitals for a reprimand.

French officials on Thursday told Iran's ambassador to Paris that Israel's right to exist "cannot be contested."

And Sharon told Russia's foreign minister that Iran should be kicked out of the United Nations. "The prime minister said that a state which calls for the destruction of another people cannot be a member of the United Nations," according to a statement released by his office.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said Israel's response to the suicide bombing only enflamed the tense situation. "We have condemned the Hadera attack. It doesn't serve our people's interests, but at the same time we condemn the Israeli aggression. This aggression doesn't ensure calm," Qureia told reporters.

The small Islamic Jihad group signed on to the truce last spring, but has repeatedly flouted the cease-fire by claiming it has the right to retaliate for any perceived Israeli violations. It has carried out four suicide bombings inside Israel since the truce.

The much larger Hamas militant group, which plans to run in January parliamentary elections, has largely scaled back its attacks since the truce declaration. In contrast, Islamic Jihad is not participating in the vote and has much less to lose by continuing to attack Israel.

Israeli officials accused arch-enemies Iran and Syria of assisting the attackers, noting that Islamic Jihad is funded by Tehran and is headquartered in Damascus.

"This infrastructure is murderous and we will try to deal with it and silence it," Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, told Israel Radio.

The attack came hours after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised suicide bombings and said Israel should be "wiped off the map." Vice Premier Shimon Peres called for Iran to be tossed out of the United Nations for the president's comments, which drew wide international condemnation.

Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approved the latest offensive in a series of overnight telephone calls, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

"Islamic Jihad has declared war on every Israeli civilian and of course we're 100 percent entitled to take the appropriate action to defend our civilians," Regev said.

"Ultimately, Israel still hopes the Palestinian Authority will follow through on their own commitments to disarm these groups and that will make the necessity for Israeli action superfluous."

Israeli media compared the operation to Operation Defensive Shield of April 2002, launched in response to a suicide bombing in a hotel that killed 29 Israelis on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover.

During that offensive, Israel retook control of Palestinian towns and cities, killing and arresting dozens of militants in house-to-house arrest sweeps. In more than two weeks of fighting, 208 Palestinians and 25 Israeli soldiers were killed.