Israeli warplanes hit Hamas-run Gaza Thursday after fighters rattled the Jewish state with rocket fire, ending a five-day lull and threatening efforts to push forward Middle East peace talks. The violence flared within hours of an Israeli operation Wednesday in the West Bank town of Bethlehem where undercover special forces killed four Palestinians, including two senior commanders. Fighters fired a dozen rockets into the Jewish state during the night, Israeli warplanes struck northern Gaza early in the day and gunmen fired another dozen rockets afterward, according to the army and the militant groups. There were no casualties, but the renewed tit-for-tat attacks put at risk international efforts to broker a more permanent deal to end the violence and the isolation around the impoverished territory. They also come a day before the Israelis and Palestinians are to meet with a US general to resume peace talks that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended amid a week of strikes in Gaza that left more than 130 people dead. In a rare harshly-worded statement, the Palestinian presidency accused Israel of “barbaric crimes.” “These barbaric crimes reveal the true face of Israel, which speaks loudly about peace and security all the while committing murders and executions against our people,” it said. But Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak vowed to keep hitting fighters. “Yesterday in Bethlehem we proved again that Israel will pursue and hit all assassins with blood on their hands. No matter how much time has passed, Israel will be waiting for them,” he said. Israel, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad had been observing a tacit truce in and around the Gaza Strip since early Saturday as Egypt seeks to work out a more permanent deal. Egypt has been holding talks aimed at ending Israeli strikes on Gaza, rocket fire into Israel and a lifting of a crippling regime of Israeli and international sanctions on the coastal strip, one of the world's most densely-populated places where most people depend on aid. The violence in and around the Gaza Strip, where Hamas seized power in June after routing forces loyal to Abbas, has cast a shadow over peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians that were revived at a US conference in November. __
