JERUSALEM, 30 June 2004 — Rockets fired by Palestinians landed around 200 meters from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as he was paying a morale-boosting visit to the troubled town of Sderot yesterday.
Sharon escaped unhurt from the attack which came as Israeli forces were conducting a major offensive around the launch pad of the rocket attacks in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoon which lies less than two kilometers from the border with Israel.
The prime minister was visiting Sderot a day after the first ever deadly rocket attack on southern Israel which killed two people.
“The rockets fell about 150 to 200 meters away from where they were holding the meeting,” a senior official who was accompanying the premier said.
During a meeting with Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal, which was also attended by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, Sharon vowed Israel would take action against the firing of rockets.
“We don’t plan to ignore what happened here. The security services have begun taking action whose aim is to prevent the firing of these missiles,” he said.
“This will not be a simple task but we are determined to take wide-ranging action to ensure that what happened here yesterday will not happen again — not now, not during the evacuation of the Gaza Strip and not afterward.”
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat condemned the Israeli escalation against the Palestinian people as a continuation of damaging the peace efforts while the Israeli occupation targeted a media center housing international and local media, including the Al-Jazeera satellite TV station and BBC, and invaded the town of Beit Hanoon in the northern Gaza Strip early yesterday, killing one Palestinian.
At least 15 Palestinians were wounded in clashes with the Israeli forces who had taken control of an industrial zone in Beit Hanoon.
Palestinians could be seen on the streets of the town as Israeli helicopter gunships flew overhead but there were no reports of armed clashes.
The troops moved in with armored cars from two directions around dawn before flattening several houses in the area with army bulldozers.
Witnesses said a Hamas activist had been killed while attempting to detonate a bomb, but there was no official confirmation as the body had yet to be recovered by medics.
Mofaz, who called off a trip to Italy in the aftermath of Monday’s attack, indicated that the troops could be in Beit Hanoon for some time.
Meanwhile, in southern Gaza, 14-year-old Ahmad Abu Eid was shot dead by troops in Khan Yunis while standing on the roof of his house feeding the pigeons, Palestinian sources said.
Israeli military sources said troops had fired at a suspicious figure on the roof of an abandoned building “used by terrorists to shoot at army positions and at settlements.”
