Israeli Governing Parties Face Poll Battering Amid Gaza Scepticism

Israel's governing parties are facing eclipse in an upcoming general election as the Gaza campaign fails to convince a skeptical public while playing into the hands of opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu.

With Israel's 10 February election just over a week away, opinion polls and analysts say that the two principal government parties, Kadima and labor, have extracted little benefit from the three-week Gaza war.

That much was underscored yesterday when at least 10 rockets were fired into Israel, injuring three and drawing ominous promises of retaliation from the government. Hamas has not taken responsibility for the new attacks, some of which have been claimed by smaller groups. But Israel says it holds Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since seizing power in June 2007, responsible for all attacks coming from the territory.

Israel retaliated by bombing three targets in Gaza last night after the government threatened "harsh and disproportionate" action as it scrambled to stop Palestinian rocket fire and to check the rise of its right-wing rival, Netanyahu's Likud party.

Israeli warplanes struck after the military said had it called Gazan residents on their mobile phones to play a recorded message warning those who live near weapons tunnels or store houses to evacuate their homes immediately.

The military said its warplanes hit a Hamas outpost and six smuggling tunnels in Rafah, along the Egyptian border.

Despite a war that left 1,300 Palestinians dead and reduced much of Gaza to rubble, the coalition headed by Kadima party leader, Tzipi Livni and the labor party chief Ehud Barak, has failed to make ground on Netanyahu, who argues that Hamas should be purged from Gaza.

A poll conducted for Haaretz newspaper at the weekend predicted that Likud and its allies would win 65 seats in the elections, giving it a 12-seat advantage over the centre-left parties, which are expected to capture just 53 of the 120 parliamentary seats up for grabs.

"Forty-one per cent said that the war was a success and 41% said it wasn't," said Tel Aviv University professor Camil Fuchs, who conducts a poll for Haaretz newspaper and Channel 10.

The war has served to boost the importance of Netanyahu's key campaign issue - national security - and the debate about its aftermath has strengthened his hand.

"Of those who said it wasn't a success, 37% said it was because they didn't finish Hamas off while 31% said it wasn't a success because they didn't bring home [the captured Israeli soldier] Gilad Shalit," Fuchs said. Some 11% said the government failed because of the high number of Palestinian casualties.

As rockets continued to fall on southern Israel, bitter divisions emerged within the cabinet yesterday over how to reach a more effective truce with Hamas. The Islamists are considering an Egyptian proposal for a one-year agreement with Israel that would take effect on Thursday.

Barak, who has been exploring the deal through Egyptian mediators, recently said Israel was "on the verge of a long period of quiet". But Livni accused Barak of bolstering the enemy: "A settlement with Hamas would give it legitimacy, and those working for that with the Egyptians need to understand that. We need to use strength and a lot of it, there is no reason to wait."

While Barak vowed never to sign a deal with Hamas, he retorted: "In election season, there is a lot of chatter by people who have never held a weapon and don't understand the conditions under which we must act. Hamas was dealt a severe blow and it will be dealt one again, but the decision needs to be made by the experts."

Military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin reportedly told yesterday's cabinet meeting that the war was deterring Hamas which was beginning to understand the blow it has suffered. "Despite its bragging in the media, self-examination of its operational failures has begun," Yadlin said.

Hamas leaders were meanwhile flaunting their associations, as exiled leader Khaled Meshal arrived in Tehran with a retinue of aides to meet the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Meshal wanted to convey the gratitude of Palestinians for Iran's "spiritual support for the Palestinian resistance against Israel," said the Irna news agency. Ahmadinejad congratulated Hamas on its "victory".

It may be premature. Olmert made clear yesterday that Hamas could expect further retaliation from Israel: "We won't give the terror groups warning as to when and how we'll react, but Israel will respond and act at the time and place of its choosing."