By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - A year-old Palestinian girl and a seniorHamas bombmaker were killed in the Gaza Strip on Friday asIsrael pressed home air strikes after a senior official warnedGazans they risked a "shoah" if rocket fire did not stop.
With the Palestinian death toll at 35 in three days, aidesinsisted the deputy defence minister used the Hebrew word notin its common meaning of holocaust but only as a term fordisaster.
But the strength of his language reflected mounting angerafter an Israeli was killed by a rocket on Wednesday and thegovernment debated whether to mount a major ground offensive.
Hamas, which organised rallies in Gaza, held the comment upas proof their enemies in the Jewish state were the "newNazis".
Friday saw fewer air strikes. One, which the army said hadtargeted a rocket team, killed Eyad al-Ashram. Hamas said hewas one of the Islamist group's senior munitions experts,involved in what it said was a total of 208 rockets fired inFebruary.
Doctors said one-year-old Malak al-Kafarna died in hospitalfrom a shrapnel wound to the head after a missile exploded nearher home, wounding four other civilians. Hamas officials saidit was an Israeli surface-to-surface missile. Residents saidsome rockets fired by militants also fell short, landing insideGaza.
Political sources said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was waryof launching a major ground offensive and Israeli public radiostations quoted security sources saying that, while plans foran assault were being prepared, such an invasion was notimminent.
The United States, whose Secretary of State CondoleezzaRice is due next week to visit Olmert and Palestinian leadersin the occupied West Bank, urged Israel to "consider theconsequences" of its action. Bloodshed could derailWashington's hopes of a peace deal this year before PresidentGeorge W. Bush steps down.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has sharedIsrael's hostility to Hamas since they routed his forces inGaza in June, called Israeli threats "dangerous". EvenPalestinians who want to see Hamas defeated are outraged thatat least 16 civilians, including children as young as 6 months,are among the 35 dead.
"A BIGGER SHOAH"
An Israeli army spokeswoman blamed militants for civiliandeaths: "All the attacks were against terror targets and ifchildren were nearby, the responsibility is in their hands."
Critics say at least 68 deaths in Gaza in February and 62in January are a disproportionate response to 3 Israeli deathsin a year. There has been international support for Israel'sright to defend itself against enemies who deny the Jewishstate's right to exist. But there have also been calls forrestraint.
Hamas officials complained of an "international silence"over the "massacre", however, including from fellow Arabs.
Israel's deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai told ArmyRadio: "The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reacha longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger'shoah' because we will use all our might to defend ourselves."
The word "shoah" is rarely used in Israel beyonddiscussions of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews but governmentspokesmen said Vilnai had employed the word only to mean"disaster".
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, a former prime minister, said:"They want the world to condemn what they call the Holocaustand now they are threatening our people with a holocaust".
Israeli leaders said rockets from the blockaded territorymay leave them no choice but to launch a broader offensive intothe crowded coastal strip, which is home to 1.5 million peopleand which Israel occupied for 38 years until 2005.
Though rocket fire has long disrupted life in small Israeliborder towns since then, the killing of an Israeli onWednesday, the first such death since May, has increased publicpressure on Olmert's already unpopular coalition government toact.
Hamas has also raised the stakes by firing Soviet-designedKatyusha missiles, more powerful and accurate than improvisedGazan Qassams, to strike the much larger city of Ashkelon.
Visiting there, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said an Israeliresponse was "required" and that "Hamas bears responsibilityfor this deterioration and it will also bear the results".
According to Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Barak hassought to prepare the way for an offensive by sendingconfidential messages to world leaders, including Rice.
"Israel is not keen on and rushing for an offensive, butHamas is leaving us no choice," Barak told them, Yedioth said.
However, chastened by his 2006 war against Hezbollah inLebanon, Olmert is wary of an operation that would incur morecasualties when Israel is reluctant to re-occupy Gazalong-term.
(Additional reporting by Adam Entous, Joseph Nasr and AriRabinovitch in Jerusalem and Wafa Amr in Ramallah; Writing byAlastair Macdonald in Jerusalem; Editing by Matthew Jones)
