DAMASCUS, Sept 26 (AFP) - A top Hamas militant was killed when his car blew up in Damascus on Sunday in what the hardline Palestinian movement declared was an assassination by Israel's Mossad spy agency.
Hamas vowed to wreak bloody revenge after the killing of Ezzeddine Sheikh Khalil, 40, a Palestinian who was expelled by Israel to Lebanon during the first intifada more than a decade ago.
Israel has recently threatened to strike Hamas militants at home and abroad, including the Syrian capital where a number of the movement's senior officials are based, but Israeli officials denied all knowledge of the blast.
The Damascus strike came as Israel vowed to intensify action to stop Hamas firing makeshift bombs and rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory after a raid that left two Palestinians injured.
A senior source close to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he had "no information about this (Damascus) incident other than that which comes to us through the media".
But he added: "It is obvious that Damascus is little more than a sanctuary for terrorists."
The Israeli army also denied knowledge of the strike.
But Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri told AFP in Gaza City: "We blame Mossad for putting a bomb in his car."
He accused Israel of trying to broaden the conflict by targetting leaders outside of the Palestinian territories and vowed revenge.
"This ugly Zionist crime targetting leaders outside shows Israel is trying to export the crisis and to drag the whole region into the inferno," he said.
"This will not stop our resistance but will lead us to carry out a painful revenge. Ezzedine al-Qassam (Brigades) will avenge the killing of Sheikh Khalil," he said, referring to Hamas' armed wing.
Al-Masri said Khalil, who was born in Gaza City, was among some 400 Palestinian militants deported by Israel to Lebanon in 1992.
In Israel's last major strike against Hamas, 15 members of the military wing were killed on September 7 while they were undergoing training on a football field in Gaza.
The attack was Israel's first major response to a double Hamas suicide bombing in the southern city of Beersheva a week earlier, which left 16 Israelis dead, as well as the two bombers.
After that strike, Israel warned that its campaign against Hamas would reach all the way to the movement's Syrian-based leadership, as well as its foot soldiers.
"We will strike Hamas everywhere -- in Gaza, in Damascus -- in order to avoid the assassinations of Israelis," Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin told AFP at the time.
Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based politburo chief who emerged as overall Hamas leader after Israel killed its two other chiefs earlier this year, is thought to top Israel's wanted list.
The Israeli government claims that Hamas' strategic planning is now almost totally conducted in Damascus, although a handful of autonomous cells still exist in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel has in the past shown itself more than willing to strike at targets in Syria, with the air force carrying out an air raid on a Palestinian training base deep in Syrian territory last October, which it claimed was being used by Hamas.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials vowed Sunday to step up the fight against militants in the Gaza Strip who fire mortar shells and Qassam rockets at Israeli targets.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Sharon "ordered the Israeli forces to intensify their fight, especially in order to stop Palestinian terrorists from firing rockets and mortars" at Israeli targets, Israel public radio said.
Named after Hamas' armed wing, the Qassam rockets can carry a five-kilogramme (11-pound) explosive charge and have a 10-kilometre (six-mile) range, but are generally inaccurate.
Sharon meanwhile, had been expected to present a final version of his controversial Gaza pullout plan to the cabinet on Sunday, although there was no official confirmation.
The cabinet is set to vote on the project on October 24, and Sharon has said he expects the plan to win parliamentary approval in early November.
Under the terms of the plan, all troops and settlers in the Gaza Strip and four small enclaves in the northern West Bank should be evacuated by the end of 2005.