Palestinian police inspect the rubbles of the building detonated by Israeli troops

GAZA CITY, March 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Israeli occupation troops staged an incursion south of Gaza City Tuesday overnight, March 16, and dynamited a building which housed a Palestinian college, Palestinian security sources said.

Backed by tanks and bulldozers, the occupation soldiers moved into the area and reduced the building of the faculty of education to rubble, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Two Palestinian policemen were wounded in an exchange of fire that broke out during the raid, the Palestinian sources said.

The Israeli occupation claimed that the building as used by Palestinians to fire on Israeli convoys driving to the nearby Jewish settlement of Netzarim.

The fresh raid came only one day after four Israeli strike helicopters fired at least 15 missiles at Palestinian industrial workshops in Gaza City,causing power blackout.

‘Exceptional Response’

Israel 's security cabinet is also set to convene Tuesday for the first time in six months to decide on a response to a double bombing that left 11 Israelis dead in the southern Israeli port of Ashdod

The bombings -- the first carried out by Palestinians from the Gaza Strip since the start of the second Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli occupation and the first to hit a strategic target -- rattled Israel 's security establishment.

A senior security source, quoted by the Israeli radio, said the proposed moves would be “exceptional in their scope, their intensity and their duration”, and include activities “not seen in the Palestinian territories for a long time”.

The Israeli daily Haaretz said Israeli officials proposed an increase of both ground operations and targeted killings similar to those carried out last autumn in Gaza.

Well-informed sources told London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi was high on the Israeli assassination list.

Israeli Agriculture Minister Israel Katz also said the attack “necessitated the expulsion” of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat from the West Bank.

But Palestinian resistance groups said any retaliation would bring its own counter-strike, Reuters news agency said.

“They long believed the Gaza Strip was a prison. We have shown up from that prison to tell them no walls and no security measures will protect them,” said Abu Qusai of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, one of the groups behind the Ashdod attack.

“No strategic place will be immune,” he vowed.

No Peace Partner

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, meanwhile, declared Monday he has no Palestinian partner in the peace process.

“There is no Palestinian leader with the necessary courage or capabilities to fight terrorism,” AFP quoted the premier as telling the Knesset.

“Accordingly, no negotiations can take place with the Palestinians.”

Sharon also called off plans for an imminent summit with his Palestinian counterpart Ahmad Qorei after Sunday's attack.

Furthermore, Sharon’s disengagement speech was narrowly approved by the Knesset.

Forty-six members of the 120-seat parliament voted in favor, while 45 voted against the speech.

The Gaza plan is part of a larger package of unilateral measures that Sharon has pledged to implement due to the moribund peace process.

The project will see the evacuation of all but a handful of the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, while Israel will seek to strengthen its control over other settlements in the West Bank.