Gaza ground offensive was an option unless world pressure was brought on the Islamist group to halt rocket fire. Asked if Haniyeh was on Israel's hit-list, Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh said: "I'll put it like this -- there is no one who is in the circle of commanders and leaders in Hamas who is immune from a strike."
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas official, said in response in Gaza: "Any harm to Prime Minister Haniyeh or any Hamas leader would mean a change in the rules of the game and the occupation (Israel) must be ready to pay an unprecedented price."
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz, meeting the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, called on the international community to take action immediately to try to persuade Hamas to stop firing the makeshift rockets at Israel.
Abu Zuhri said Israel must first stop all its attacks on Palestinians before the group and other factions could consider halting their own strikes.
The Israeli army said about 150 rockets have been fired from Gaza in a week in which Hamas, which had been battling the Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas, turned to attacks against Israel, accusing the Jewish state of aiding its rival.
A woman was killed on Monday in the Israeli town of Sderot, the first fatality in a Palestinian rocket attack since November.
"There is is no simple, single or simplistic response to the issue of the Qassam (rocket) fire," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in remarks broadcast on Tuesday, said during a visit to Sderot a day earlier, after the salvo.
Israeli air strikes over the past week have killed at least 34 Palestinians, medical officials said in Gaza. Militant groups said 23 of the dead were fighters.
"Now this is a test for European diplomacy. It is a test for U.S. diplomacy. It is a test for the diplomacy of the free world. If the rockets do not stop, we will not stop," Peretz told reporters, with Solana at his side.
