GAZA CITY, July 17, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – In another deadly blow to the fragile truce, Israel assassinated Sunday, July 17, a senior Hamas activist outside his house and threatened a massive onslaught against the Gaza Strip.

Saeed Seyam, a leader of Hamas’s armed wing Ezzudin Al-Qassam Brigades in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, was assassinated outside his home, reported Reuters.

He was hit in the neck with a single shot from an Israeli sniper, eyewitnesses said.

His death brought to eight the number of Hamas activists killed by the Israeli occupation forces in less than three days.

On Friday, July 15, two simultaneous Israeli air strikes killed six Hamas members in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, drawing threats of retaliation from the resistance group.

"Revenge, revenge," shouted thousands of Palestinian mourners in Gaza at the funerals.

"When Palestinian blood is shed, there is no protection for Zionist blood," said Ismail Haniyah, a Hamas leader.

The group has further warned that the air strikes would "open the doors of hell" on Israel and said it was reconsidering its commitment to the truce.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas managed to convince resistance factions in March to observe a "period of calm" conditional on Israel ending its policy of assassination targeting resistance activists.

Since then, the calm has been put to the test several times in view of continued Israeli violations.

Over the past three months, many Palestinians were killed and wounded by Israeli gunfire, drawing retaliatory mortar and rocket attacks from Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters on Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

An Israeli soldier guards armored vehicles near Ganei Tal settlement. (Reuters)

Upping the rhetoric, Israel threatened Sunday to storm the Gaza Strip.

"We are going for a large-scale operation in Gaza," Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Radio, when asked about tanks and troops amassed outside Gaza over the weekend.

"It depends on what evolves over the coming hours. It is a matter of hours. We will not tolerate this barrage," he said, referring to rockets and mortars fired by Palestinian resistance fighters on Israeli settlements in the Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was expected to discuss the Gaza situation at his cabinet's weekly meeting later in the day.

Palestinian leaders said such an attack could be disastrous for peace prospects and Israel's hopes of a smooth pullout from Gaza settlements, starting next month.

"If carried out, it would have only disastrous results on the Gaza disengagement's prospects and on the peace process as a whole," senior negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

Israeli officials have said the army might carry out wide-scale raids and reoccupy Palestinian areas near the 21 Jewish settlements to be evacuated in Gaza.

Israeli troops reoccupied the West Bank town of Tulkarm and sealed off the West Bank and the Gaza Strip Wednesday, July 13.

Abbas on Saturday urged Hamas and other resistance factions to halt attacks on Israel and return to a truce seen as key to securing an orderly Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

"I call upon all factions and parties to declare their commitment to what we have agreed upon ... the commitment to calm," he said in a speech broadcast on national television.

Abbas also vowed not to allow any further internal fighting like the gunbattles in recent days between Hamas and Palestinian police which claimed the lives of two teenagers.

The Palestinian leader, meanwhile, blamed Israel for the truce's near-collapse.