Washington, June 15: Pre-emptive attacks on Hamas and other hardline Palestinian groups behind anti-Israeli violence are Israel's only option until the Palestinian Authority can quell the violence, Israel's Ambassador to the United States said today. "We have been showing restraint," Ambassador Daniel Ayalon said.

"But if we have a choice of trying to kill a terrorist or of waiting for him to come and kill 16, 17 civilians, I don't think there is any dilemma here.

"Democracy has only one way to defend itself, by stopping the terrorists ... Before they come exploding among us," he said.

His remarks came as US President George W Bush, spending the weekend in Kennebunkport, Maine, called on the international community to "deal harshly" with Hamas and other violent anti-Israeli groups.

In a blunt call to quash such extremists, Bush said that in order to bring peace to the region "it is clear that the free world, those who love freedom and peace, must deal harshly with Hamas and the killers" of Israelis.

His remarks went further than those last week when he pronounced himself "deeply troubled" by an Israeli helicopter attack on a Hamas leader and regretted "the loss of innocent life."

Ayalon, asked if Israel was "at war" with Hamas, stressed that his country was "engaging in self-defence.

Bureau Report