Related: Hamas to halt rockets attacks on Israel

    

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon speaks before the weekly cabinet meeting in his Jerusalem office September 25, 2005.  (Xinhua/AFP photo)

JERUSALEM, Sept. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Sunday that he had ordered Israeli forces to use "all means" to stop rocket attacks launched by Palestinian militants.

    "I have ordered that there be no limitation regarding use of all means to hit the terrorists, the men of the terror organizations, to hit them, their equipment and their hideouts," Sharon told the cabinet's weekly session.

    "The order is unequivocal," he stressed.

    The prime minister said Israeli forces had embarked on "an ongoing operation, whose aim is to hit terrorists and not torelent from this."

    "All means are fit for this. Except our usual practice of refraining from harming civilians, all means should be used tohalt this phenomenon," Sharon added.

    In the widest arrest raid since a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip on Sept. 12, Israeli forces arrested 207 members of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) in the West Bank on late Saturday and early Sunday.

    The arrest was Israel's biggest crackdown since Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas agreed on a ceasefire in February that paved the way for Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.

    

Israeli soliders fire a test round just outside the northern Gaza Strip Sept. 25, 2005. (Xinhua/AFP photo)

The overnight raid came as the Israeli security cabinet approved late Saturday the use of artillery fire against Palestinian rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip in response to the barrage of rocket attacks on the southern Israeli city of Sderot over the weekend.

    The cabinet also decided to resume air strikes and targeted assassinations against Hamas members.

    It also ratified Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's proposal that Israel Defenses forces create buffer zones within the Gaza Strip in areas near the border between Gaza and Israel in order to keep rocket launchers away from Israeli communities. Enditem