Shaul Mofaz told Israeli Army Radio the policy of targeted killings had been successful and would continue.

Mr Haniya has been nominated to form the next Palestinian government after Hamas' shock poll victory in January.

Israel's own campaign for polls on 28 March has begun, with the Kadima party of acting PM Ehud Olmert tipped to win.

Tough line

Mr Mofaz's comments came a day after two Islamic Jihad militants and three other Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City.

"We will continue the targeted killings at this pace," Mr Mofaz said.

"If Hamas, a terror organisation that doesn't recognise agreements with us and isn't willing to renounce violence, presents us with the challenge of having to confront a terror organisation, then no-one there will be immune.

"Not just Ismail Haniya. No-one will be immune."

Two years ago, Israel killed two top Hamas leaders, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdelaziz al-Rantissi, in air strikes.

Hamas has launched many suicide attacks on Israeli territory in the five-year Palestinian uprising, but has largely observed an informal ceasefire for more than a year.

In contrast to Hamas, Islamic Jihad has continued to mount suicide bombings inside Israel and did not participate in the 25 January election.

Salah Bardawil, a Hamas spokesman, said Mr Mofaz's comments "reflect the bloody, inhumane and inflammatory character of the Zionist enemy".

"We are not seeking immunity or mercy from Israel. We are in a confrontation. The side that is most steadfast is the side that will survive," he said.

Hamas won 74 seats to the 45 of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party in January's election.

Mr Haniya is seen as a pragmatist, more open to dialogue with Israel than many other Hamas leaders although Hamas refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist.

The new parliament on Monday attempted to revoke recent legislation giving more powers to Mr Abbas, dimming hopes of forming a unity government. Fatah MPs walked out.

Settlements

The BBC's correspondent in Jerusalem, Matthew Price says it is no surprise that Mr Mofaz's comment was made at the start of the Israeli election campaign, in which all leading parties are running advertisements on radio and TV.

Mr Mofaz's party, Kadima, could lose votes if it appears to be soft on the Palestinians, our correspondent says.

Recent opinion polls put Kadima well ahead.

One in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper recently predicted Kadima would win 38 seats in the 120-strong assembly, with the Labour party of Amir Peretz winning 20 and Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu gaining 15.

Kadima leader Ehud Olmert, who has headed the party since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke in January, launched Kadima's election campaign by vowing to reduce spending on settlements in the West Bank if Kadima retained power.

"It is no secret. We are not going to invest in coming years the same kind of money that we have previously spent on construction and infrastructure development in areas beyond the Green Line," which separates Israel from the West Bank, he said.

"Instead, in the coming years we are going to accord priority status to three areas in Israel: the Negev, the Galilee and Jerusalem where we are going to invest sums which are unprecedented in the history of our country."

The international community considers all settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

Three passengers killed in the car were Islamic Jihad members, Abu Dajana said. Palestinian doctors said a teenage bystander was also killed in the strike.

One lightly injured person, Amin Sarsour, said he was crossing the road when the missile struck.

"Suddenly a missile hit a car travelling in front of us and a huge explosion went off and the car went up in flames," said Sarsour, a resident of the area.

An angry mob gathered outside the morgue, shooting in the air and shouting "Death to Israel."

The car was travelling when the explosion went off, witnesses said.

The Israeli military confirmed it hit the car with a missile. It said one of those killed had been involved in rocket attacks against Israeli communities.

Islamic militant group Hamas, which is forming a government after winning Palestinian parliamentary elections in January, called the air strike a "massacre." President Mahmoud Abbas said it was a "dangerous escalation" against the Palestinian people.

The unified condemnation was in sharp contrast to the first working session of the new Palestinian parliament, where Hamas legislators challenged Abbas by revoking all decisions made by the previous legislature at its final session last month.

That included legislation giving Abbas wider powers to appoint judges.

Hamas trounced Abbas's once-dominant Fatah movement in parliamentary elections on January 25. A senior Abbas aide accused Hamas of attempting to oust the Palestinian president.

"We see this as a coup attempt to change the regime and they have to seriously reconsider their decisions," said the aide, Tayeb Abdel-Rahim.

In the final session of the previous parliament on February 13, majority Fatah members pushed through an amendment to an existing law, giving Abbas power to appoint judges to a constitutional court without seeking legislative approval.

The judges could have been asked to decide whether laws approved by the new parliament were constitutional. Hamas said the move effectively gave Abbas veto power over new laws.

The move was seen as a challenge to Abbas, whose once-dominant Fatah faction suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of Hamas in parliamentary elections on Jan. 25.

A senior Abbas aide accused Hamas of attempting to oust the Palestinian president.

"We see this as a coup attempt to change the regime and they (Hamas) have to seriously reconsider their decisions," said Tayeb Abdel-Rahim.

In the final session of the previous parliament on Feb. 13, majority Fatah members pushed through an amendment to an existing law, giving Abbas power to appoint judges to a constitutional court without seeking legislative approval.

The judges could be asked to decide whether laws approved by the new parliament are constitutional. Hamas has said the move would effectively give Abbas veto power over new laws.

In the first parliamentary session since being sworn in, Hamas lawmakers -- who dominate the 132-seat parliament, nullified all decisions taken in the session.

"The law is very clear. It gives us the right to endorse or reject the resolutions or the decisions of that session," senior Hamas lawmaker Mahmoud Ramahi told Reuters before the annulment vote was taken.

Fatah members had earlier walked out of the first working session of the new parliament on Monday in protest after Hamas began steps to revoke the previous decisions.

Hamas legislators voted Monday to revoke all decisions made by the previous Palestinian parliament at its final session last month, including legislation that gave Abbas wider powers to appoint some judges.

The move was seen as a challenge to Abbas, whose once-dominant Fatah faction suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of Hamas in parliamentary elections on January 25.

"The law is very clear. It gives us the right to endorse or reject the resolutions or the decisions of that session," senior Hamas lawmaker Mahmoud Ramahi told Reuters before the annulment vote was taken.

The session was held simultaneously in the West Bank town of Ramallah and in Gaza City, with legislators hooked up by video conference.

In the final session of the previous parliament on February 13, majority Fatah members pushed through an amendment to an existing law, giving Abbas power to appoint judges to a consitutional court without seeking legislative approval.

The judges could be asked to decide whether laws approved by the new parliament are constitutional. Hamas has said the move would effectively give Abbas veto power over new laws.

Fatah members had earlier walked out of the first working session of the new parliament on Monday in protest after Hamas began steps to revoke the previous decisions.

During the voting, a dozen Fatah gunmen walked near the parliament building in Gaza City, firing in the air. However, the protesters eventually headed to a nearby meeting of Fatah leaders, demanding that their party not join a Hamas government. One masked gunman said any Fatah politician joining a Hamas government would be killed.

Meshal, whose three-day visit to the Russian capital ended Sunday, was quoted as telling the daily Vremya Novostei that "Moscow became the place where we opened the door to the entire global community."

"It broke the blockade which Israel and the United States have been trying to impose on us," Meshal said.

He also said that "Russia's position is completely unlike that of the West" and praised Russian officials for understanding Hamas' stance.

"We have never found understanding with the Americans," Meshal told Vremya Novostei. "They aren't ready to listen to opinions which contradict theirs. And at the Russian Foreign Ministry we felt that we were being understood."

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert over the weekend to update him on the outcome of the visit.

In a year when Hollywood embraced such groundbreaking movies as Goodnight & Good Luck, Syriana, Trans America, Brokeback Mountain and Crash, a New York theater company cancelled a production of the play My Name is Rachel Corrie on the grounds that the public outcry would be unbearable.

The rationale is a lie on its face. As anyone in theater knows, controversy is manna from heaven. It was not public outcry that silenced the voice of a martyr; it was the censorship imposed by Israeli loyalists. It was the promise that generous public funding and contributions would suddenly come up short. It was intolerance for any view, any story, that does not portray Israel as the righteous party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Who was Rachel Corrie?

She was an all-American girl who was impassioned by the cause of the Palestinian people. In an act of civil disobedience, like the anonymous hero of Tiananmen Square, she stood before an Israeli bulldozer preparing to demolish a Palestinian neighborhood. She stood against injustice and oppression. She stood courageously for the values that all Americans cherish and she was crushed by the heavy and heartless hand of Israeli indifference.

She stood in the way of the "Road Map" to peace. She stood in the way of Ariel Sharon's new deal for the Palestinians: let them eat dirt and suffer as we assassinate their leaders with American-made precision bombs and reduce their homes to rubble.

Rachel Corrie had the audacity to care and, beyond caring, to act on her convictions. Without regard to any judgments you may impose on the validity of her cause or means, Rachel Corrie was the essence of courage and heroism. She was what every mother's child should endeavor to be. She chose the ground upon which she would make her stand and paid for it with her life.

Like Marla Ruzicka and so many others, most of whom will never have a public name, whose stories will never be told, Rachel Corrie will never speak for herself again. From the silence of her grave, she will never answer her detractors. She will never marry. She will never have children. She will never be elected to Congress. She will never know the joy and sorrow of a life fully lived.

The essential question of whether her life, her cause and her sacrifice were worthwhile and the greater question of whether or not she made a difference in this indifferent world can only be answered by the living.

If we do not possess the courage even to tell her story for fear of public outcry, then we are truly complicit in the actions of her murderers. We are enabling when all that we know and feel begs us for retribution.

Imagine what being crushed by a bulldozer would feel like. Linger on that gruesome deed and allow your tears to flow like a river of redemption. Even the vilest creature on earth would not deserve such a death.

Rachel Corrie was no such creature.

Let her voice be heard. Let her story be told.

In the six months preceding the withdrawal, an average of 43 trucks per day crossed out of Gaza, followed by 18 trucks a day in September and October 2005, the report said.

From November 2005 to mid-February, the daily average reached only 43 trucks a day, it added.

The United Nations cautioned last week that stocks of wheat, sugar and cooking oil were dwindling in Gaza and could begin to run out within days unless Israel reopened Karni.

Israel closed the crossing for 21 days between January 15 and February 5. It was closed again on February 21 after a mysterious explosion in the area and has remained closed because of "continued security alerts," the army said.

Israeli officials have defended their closure of Karni as a security precaution against possible Palestinian attacks and said they offered to reroute supplies to Gaza through another crossing, a proposal the Palestinians declined.

Israel has retained control of all access points for bringing goods in and out of the Gaza Strip, citing security concerns.

Palestinians depend on foreign aid totaling more than $1 billion a year. It is unclear how much of that money would be withheld by international donors once Palestinian election winner Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, forms the next government.

Since a Palestinian revolt erupted in 2000, Hamas has masterminded at least 60 suicide bombings against Israelis. But it has largely abided by a truce declared last year.

Hamas won a landslide election victory in January, prompting Israel, the United States and the European Union - which includes France - to threaten to stop funding unless the Islamic militant group recognize Israel and stop its militants from attacking the Jewish state.

France often presents itself as supporting Arab causes, while many Arabs regard the United States as biased toward Israel.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

A sober reflection on the nature of the problem is badly needed to take the sting out of the issue and establish groundrules that everyone can respect. But there is a suspicion that others have a different objective. In announcing the inquiry, John Mann, the MP who chairs the Parliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism, said: "Anti-semitism is back in fashion and can be found on the streets of Islington, Aldershot and Bethnal Green." This is no random list: Bethnal Green is included because of its large Muslim population, Aldershot because it is where a Jewish cemetery was desecrated last year, and Islington because it is widely regarded as the spiritual home of Britain's leftwing intelligentsia. It is this last group that has become the target of particular vilification.

Variants of this theme have become common since the breakdown of the Middle East peace process, and especially since 9/11. The left is said to be in the grip of what the rightwing American columnist George Will has called an "anti-semitic chic". Instead of declaring its hatred of Jews openly, this new antisemitism is expressed indirectly through criticism of Israel or even opposition to Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. A particularly meretricious version suggests that opposition to American foreign policy, or even criticism of neoconservatives, is really a coded form of anti-semitism.

This accusation isn't confined to the rough and tumble of the post-9/11 transatlantic debate, either. The normally measured Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has cited "a leftwing anti-American cognitive elite with strong representation in the European media" as one of the main sources of anti-semitism. He doesn't spell it out, but we all know who he means. The argument is not just that there are individuals who harbour anti-semitic views, but that something in the political culture or ideology of the left predisposes it to anti-semitism. This is said to be the real reason why it criticises Israel.

There is no shortage of examples, from Karl Marx to George Orwell, of prominent leftwing figures making offensive remarks about Jews. Instances of anti-capitalism spilling into "rich Jew" bigotry are also well documented. More recently, Tam Dalyell blamed government support for Israel on "a cabal of Jewish advisers" - comments that were deservedly condemned.

But these personal expressions of prejudice stand out precisely because they conflict so sharply with the left's universalism and its opposition to ethnic discrimination. A more sweeping charge is that this universalism is itself a source of anti-semitism since, in its maximalist interpretation, it denies Israel's right to be a Jewish state. But the few still calling for a single "secular, democratic state" in the whole of historic Palestine are making a statement about the inadmissibility of defining statehood according to religious or ethnic criteria that they apply as a universal norm. Impractical and idealistic this may be, but it is not anti-semitic, and it is plainly dishonest to suggest it is.

In any case, this is a minority view on the left, and has been for a long time. Decolonisation forced the mainstream left to incorporate expressions of national and ethnic identity into its worldview. The reaction of the democratic left to Israel's creation was largely positive as a result. It helped that Israel was governed from the left, but the example of a persecuted people creating a successful, independent state inspired a profound admiration for Zionism.

So what changed? The answer is 1967 and Israel's subsequent emergence as a power determined to annex territory beyond its legally recognised borders. The unbearable truth is that the left that identifies with the Palestinians today is largely the same left that identified with Israel in the 50s and the 60s. Moreover, it does so for largely the same reason: instinctive sympathy for the underdog. For some, the idea that anyone could see the conflict in these terms is literally unthinkable, so they are forced to impute to Israel's critics the motive of Jew-hatred. At best, this betrays a lack of empathy - at worst, something less forgivable. From Golda Meir's denial that the Palestinians existed to Ehud Barak's dismissal of them as congenital liars, there is a long tradition of prejudice that regards the Palestinians as lesser beings deserving of lesser rights.

A more subtle argument accepts that Israel is open to criticism, but complains that it is singled out to an extent that reveals an underlying anti-Jewish prejudice. Or to put it another way: "Others get away with it, so why can't Israel." Despite its cynicism, this argument deserves an answer, and it is provided, as it happens, by Israel's staunchest supporters. Israel, we are rightly reminded, is a democracy. Is it not legitimate, therefore, to expect it to uphold the democratic values we share in common? Far from being held to a higher standard, as its supporters often protest, Israel seems to operate with a greater impunity, and to do so with western acquiescence. This is the real reason why the issue is felt so deeply on the left and why unofficial boycotts are emerging to fill the moral void left by our feeble leaders.

A final objection takes issue with the left's supposed "demonisation" of Israel. Although often overdone, one suspects that comparisons with apartheid provoke anger because they contain an uncomfortable element of truth. More clear-cut are analogies with Nazi Germany. These should be deplored on grounds of both historical truth and taste. But are they anti-semitic as opposed to just plain obnoxious? Those who resort to them know they are bogus, but they understand their shock value and hope to shame and anger Israel and its supporters into modifying their behaviour. Indeed, as a debating tactic, it is indistinguishable from the one deployed by those levelling charges of anti-semitism against the left. They do it not because they believe it, but because they know the left takes its anti-racism seriously and is susceptible to this kind of blackmail. There has been enough of this intellectual thuggery on both sides, and it's time someone called a stop to it.

This is one way in which the report of the parliamentary inquiry could contribute something positive. Real anti-semitism is a serious and growing problem, and there is a need for political consensus about how to tackle it. But debate is poisoned and consensus becomes difficult when allegations of anti-semitism are bandied about for reasons that have nothing to do with fighting racism. An inquiry that wants to confront anti-semitism should also confront those who cheapen the term through reckless misuse.

· David Clark is a former Labour government adviser
Dkclark@aol.com