Israel to step up Gaza strikes

Israel has decided to step up targeted strikes against Palestinian terrorist leaders in the Gaza Strip. Top Cabinet members convened by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday authorized the armed forces to track and kill Palestinians responsible for rocket launches from Gaza into Israel, but to push off, for now, any wider ground sweep of the territory.”We have permitted the IDF to take reasonable responsive action, which will significantly reduce the damage seen until now,” Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Army Radio. The new policy did not appear, however, to touch on political leaders of terrorist groups such as the Hamas upper echelon.