[originaltext] Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz s

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday that Israel would carry out a military strike if Palestinian militants continued their attacks.
   Mofaz, speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, said Israel would launch a "massive, prolonged and intricate" military strike if the Palestinian Authority did not curb militants who have been attacking Israeli targets with rockets and mortar rounds in recent days, The Associated Press quoted a meeting participant as saying.
   Sharon made a similar statement. "I spoke to the heads of the defense establishment and informed them that there are to be no restraints on our operations," Sharon said Sunday, according to The AP.
   Israel has ordered troops near Israel’s border with Gaza to prepare to enter the Gaza Strip if necessary a warning to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to begin to move against militant groups.
   Reuters reported that an Israeli Army sniper had killed a Palestinian militant in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
   The shooting followed the Israeli Army’s arrest early Saturday of 30 members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the West Bank. The army also fired rockets from helicopter gunships at three suspected Hamas weapons factories in Gaza City and Khan Yunis, army spokesmen said.
   It is unlikely that Israel would move troops in force into Gaza with Abbas there, with the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, scheduled to visit this week and with Israel’s pullout from its Gaza settlements only a month away. Mofaz also says that Israel will give the Palestinian Authority time to control the violence.