A Palestinian roadside bomb ripped through an Israeli military jeep patrolling the border with Gaza on Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding three in a sudden flare-up of violence on the eve of a visit by the new US Mideast envoy. Israel responded with an airstrike that wounded a Hamas militant, and it briefly sent tanks and bulldozers across the border into Gaza. The fighting was the worst violence since the sides declared a ceasefire on Jan. 18 that halted a blistering three-week Israeli offensive. Since withdrawing its troops, Israel has threatened to retaliate hard for any violations of the informal truce. “We will respond, but there is no point in elaborating,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said during a trip to a military base in southern Israel. Later, he convened an emergency meeting of top security officials. Barak talked with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after the meeting, but no details of the discussion were released. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Ramattan, a Palestinian news agency, later released a video of the roadside bombing allegedly filmed by militants. The video showed a large explosion detonating next to a jeep moving on the Israeli side of the border fence. A huge plume of smoke emerges as the jeep stops dead in its tracks. Two Israeli soldiers are then seen running toward the jeep and gunfire is directed at them before a secondary blast hits them too. Mushir Al-Masri, a Hamas lawmaker, said Israel was to blame for continuing to fire into Gaza. Al-Masri said his group had not agreed to a full ceasefire but only to a “lull” in fighting. After Tuesday's bomb blast, heavy gunfire was heard along the border in central Gaza and Israeli helicopters hovered in the air firing machine gun bursts, Palestinian witnesses said. An Israeli jet set off a loud sonic boom over Gaza City not long afterward, possibly as a warning. Hamas said the Israeli airstrike wounded one of its militants as he rode a motorcycle in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Residents said Israeli tanks and bulldozers also entered the area where the roadside bombing took place and were tearing up some vacant land _ apparently to prevent it from being used to stage attacks. Not long after the bombing, a 27-year-old Gaza farmer was killed by Israeli gunfire along the border several miles (kilometers) away, Palestinian medical officials said. The military had no comment, and it was unclear if the two incidents were related. The violence cast a shadow over the arrival of George Mitchell, President Barack Obama's special Mideast envoy, who went to Egypt on Tuesday. He was set to arrive in Israel on Wednesday for three days of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on how to get stalled peace efforts back on track.
