GAZA CITY, Jan 25: Israeli forces dyamited four road overpasses on Saturday, isolating the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun after rockets were fired on Israeli territory from the area a day earlier, Palestinian and Israeli military sources said.

That followed a vow by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz on Friday to carry out a string of operations to “shake up” the area following the rocket attacks.

It was the latest plank in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s platform of hardline tactics.

The premier has moved to a commanding lead on the eve of Tuesday’s general election, with voters traumatized by more than two years of fighting with the Palestinians.

The Saturday operation followed closely on the heels of an overnight assault on Beit Hanun that left a 16-year-old boy dead and about 20 Palestinians wounded in the fierce gunbattles that followed.

An army source said the objective was to prevent Palestinian militants from making their way from Gaza City to the town and firing more rockets on neighbouring Israel.

A statement said the operation was carried out by infantry units, backed by armour, sappers and special forces to “permit us to control the sector better” and “protect Israeli locations, both in the Gaza Strip and outside”.

It added that the Israeli forces had come under heavy automatic weapons fire, with explosives charges being set off and an anti-tank rocket fired, but that there were no casualties among their ranks.

A number of home-made rockets were fired across the border on Friday morning by the armed wing of the Hamas.

One of them damaged a house in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, not far from Sharon’s Negev desert ranch, but no one was seriously injured.

The Israeli army statement on Saturday said more than 30 of the home-made rockets had been fired on Israeli targets from Beit Hanun in the past year.—AFP