Is the Middle East going to war?

Hamas' armed wing threatened on Sunday to attack Israeli schools, institutions and power plants if Israel, pursuing a military campaign to free a kidnapped soldier held in Gaza, continued its air strikes against infrastructure in Gaza.

"If they continue with these attacks we will strike similar targets in the Zionist Occupation which we have not targeted until now," Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas' Iz al-Din al-Qassam, said.

Israel has launched air strikes against Gaza's main power plant and road bridges as part of an offensive launched last week to free Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by militants including members of Hamas in a cross-border raid.

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"If the Occupation continues aggression and terrorism against our people ... it will drag the region into a sea of blood and the consequences will be terrible. We still have many options," Abu Ubaida said.

Abbas slams IAF strike on Haniyeh's office
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday criticized a "criminal" Israel Air Force missile strike on the Gaza offices of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

Abbas and Haniyeh met Sunday morning, and after the meeting surveyed Haniyeh's damaged office together, waving through a hole in the wall.

"The world must understand that this is a dirty, criminal act," Abbas said.

An IAF attack helicopter launched a missile before dawn Sunday striking Haniyeh's office in Gaza City. Neither Haniyeh nor any of his aides were in the vicinity at the time of the bombing, but the building itself was damaged.

Haniyeh arrived quickly to survey the damage done to his Gaza office and to condemn the attack.

"This is a policy of the jungle and of arrogance," Haniyeh told Reuters, adding that the strike "targeted a symbol of the Palestinian people."

"Nothing will affect our spirit and nothing will affect our steadfastness," said Haniyeh.

Israel Radio reported that the structure went up in flames, and firefighters rushed to the scene shortly after the attack to extinguish the fire.

Annan: IAF strike on Haniyeh's office 'inadvisable'
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Sunday called the strike on Haniyeh's officer "inadvisable", saying Palestinian institutions must be preserved as the basis of a Middle East peace.

"I remain very concerned about the need to preserve Palestinian institutions and infrastructure. They will be the basis for an eventual two-state solution, and now that's in the interests of both Israel and the Palestinians," Annan told a news conference at an African Union summit in Gambia.

"It would therefore seem inadvisable to carry out actions that would have the opposite effect," he added.

The attack was similar to Israel's strike against the offices of the Palestinian public security minister - who, like Haniyeh, is a member of Hamas - two days earlier.

The assault on Haniyeh's office indicates a desire by Israel to heighten pressure on Hamas in order to yield the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres said the attack on the office of Haniyeh came "in the middle of the night" on Sunday, when Israeli officials knew Haniyeh would not be present.

"It was a clear warning that he has to stop this double behavior," Peres told CNN's Late Edition. "Either it's a government with all the responsibilities of a government, or it's a terrorist organization, with all the consequences that stem from it."

More air strikes
In a separate pre-dawn strike, the IAF hit the headquarters of a Hamas-run security organization in Gaza, killing one of the group's operatives and injuring another, Israel Radio reported.

The IAF also targeted and killed one Hamas operative in the northern Gaza town of Jabalya, according to Israel Radio.

Several sites were targeted across Gaza over the weekend. There were no casualties in any of the incidents, Palestinian medical workers said.

The attacks were on what the IDF called a "terrorist training facility" in the south of the Strip, and on a building in Gaza City which Palestinians said was used by Hamas militants.

The military confirmed attacking a Hamas facility in Gaza, and in a former Israeli settlement near the town of Rafah near the Egyptian border which was abandoned in last year's Israeli withdrawal and then taken over by Palestinian militants.

Palestinians said the new occupants, activists of the Abu Rish Brigades, loosely affiliated with Fatah, recently evacuated the complex, fearing such a strike.