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GAZA CITY, Friday (AFP) Israeli tanks entered the Gaza Strip taking up positions around the Netzarim settlement and cutting the territory into two halves, Palestinian security sources said.

Israeli soldiers have opened fire from the tanks onto positions occupied by Palestinian security forces, the sources said.

They said Israeli helicopter gunships and an F-16 fighter jet were also seen flying over Gaza City in the middle of the night.

An Israeli military spokesman told AFP the army had taken up positions on a main route in Gaza since Wednesday in order to survey traffic following "Qassam" rocket attacks.

But, the spokesman said, alternative routes remained open to traffic.

The rockets are given the name of the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the radical Islamic group Hamas which is known for making them. Also Thursday night, the Israeli army surrounded a refugee camp in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem, while attack helicopters circled overhead and explosions were heard, Palestinian security sources said.

Just hours earlier Israel vowed to "completely wipe out" the radical Islamic group Hamas, which has contributed to a massive spike in deadly attacks and counterattacks with Israeli forces.

Earlier Israeli helicopters killed seven Palestinians, including a senior militant, his wife and infant daughter, as Israel and the Islamic group Hamas dropped any pretense of peace and declared all-out war.

Palestinian medical sources said more than 30 other people were wounded in the fifth Israeli helicopter raid in Gaza in three days, including an attempt Tuesday to kill a senior Hamas political leader that sparked a new cycle of bloodshed.

Violence also flared in the West Bank, where an Israeli was shot dead by Palestinian militants and two Islamic Jihad members were killed in a firefight with Israeli troops. The helicopter attack targeting Yasser Taha, a leader of Hamas' military wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, came hours after Israeli public radio announced the army's intention to "completely wipe out" the hardline group. An Israeli army spokesman said Taha was considered the number two to Mohammed Deif, the top military chief of Hamas who was seriously wounded in a September 2000 missile attack. But he expressed regret at the civilian loss of life, saying it was the result of "an error."

Hamas advised foreigners to leave Israel and warned in a statement that the suicide bombing of a Jerusalem bus on Wednesday that killed 16 victims was "only the beginning of a new series of reprisals" against Israel.

"The Al-Qassam cells are called upon to act rapidly to transform the Zionist entity into blood and ruins," said the group, which has been responsible for most of the anti-Israeli violence in the 32-month-old Palestinian uprising.

Since US President George W. Bush convened a peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan, on June 4, nearly 60 people have been killed, dashing hopes for implementation of his "roadmap" leading to the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005. But after criticising Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the attempt Tuesday to kill Hamas political leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi, the United States has gotten behind the move to crush the Islamic militants.

"The issue is Hamas. The terrorists are Hamas," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said as Bush traveled to Connecticut to give a speech on health care. "They are the enemies to peace, in the president's judgment."

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also said he had phoned Middle East leaders to ask them to "come down hard" on Hamas, Islamic Jihad and "the other terrorist organisations that are determined to deny us this latest opportunity for peace".

Israeli army radio said the military had been ordered to use "whatever means necessary" to eradicate Hamas, following a meeting of Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz with the army's top command shortly after Wednesday's bus bombing.

Everyone, "from the lowliest member to Sheikh Ahmad Yassin", a Hamas founder and its semi-paralysed spiritual guide, is a legitimate target, according to the army radio report.

Hamas called the decision "a declaration of all-out war, not only against Hamas, but against the Palestinian people" and called on its members to mobilize and take precautions. A crowd estimated to number more than 30,000 attended the funerals of 10 Palestinians killed in earlier Israeli helicopter raids on Gaza City, amid cries for revenge but also concern among civilians over a looming showdown.

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