Hamas leaders says ready for Israeli attack on Gaza

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh brushed aside Israeli assassination threats on Friday and said in his first public appearance in over a month that the Islamist group was ready for any large-scale attack.

Tens of thousands of Gazans poured into the streets of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip after prayers in what leaders called a show of solidarity.

Israel has threatened to launch a large-scale military operation to try to stop the barrage of cross-border rockets fired by militants in Gaza. The rockets killed one Israeli on Wednesday and reached as far as the southern city of Ashkelon.

With Prime Minister Ehud Olmert under pressure to stop the rockets, Israel stepped up its air campaign, killing at least 33 Gazans, including five children, in the past two days alone.

"I tell the leaders of the (Israeli) occupation: This round will end in terrible failure just like all the other rounds failed," Haniyeh said at a mosque near his home in Gaza's Beach refugee camp.

Senior Hamas leader Fathi Hammad told a large rally in northern Gaza that the group's rocket were improving and would one day "reach everywhere" in Israel.

Senior members of Olmert's government have called for targeting Hamas political leaders and for bringing down Haniyeh's government.

Shunned by the West for refusing to renounce violence after beating Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction in a parliamentary election two years ago, Haniyeh said Israel was "deluded" if it thought it could now remove Hamas.