GAZA CITY, 16 November 2006 — Israel threatened a punishing response yesterday to the first deadly Palestinian rocket attack on the Israeli town of Sderot since the Gaza Strip evacuation last year, even as Palestinian leaders and international envoys pursued diplomatic efforts to spur deadlocked peacemaking.
The homemade rocket exploded about 150 yards from the home of Israel’s defense minister in Sderot, a favorite target of the fighters because it is less than two kilometers from the Gaza fence.
The rocket killed a woman and badly wounded a member of the minister’s security detail who was patrolling the area. The projectile was one of at least eight that struck Israel throughout the day, including the port city of Ashkelon. After nightfall, a rocket seriously injured a Sderot teenager, the rescue service said.
Fighters affiliated to the Palestinians’ ruling Hamas group and Islamic Jihad both claimed responsibility for the fatal Sderot attack, calling it retaliation for the deaths of 19 civilians killed last week in an Israeli shelling in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
“The occupation hasn’t stopped attacking Palestinians before or after Beit Hanoun, so we say resistance is a right of Palestinians,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.
The Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz, scheduled an emergency meeting of senior security officials for later yesterday to discuss a response to the rocket attack. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently spoke of the need to broaden Israel’s military strikes against rocket squads, but no large-scale offensive was mounted. After the deadly attack yesterday, Peretz vowed a harsh response.
“We will act against anyone involved in firing Qassam (rockets),” he vowed. “The terror organizations will pay a heavy price.”
Another senior member of the Cabinet, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, said Israel must expand its operations to bring about “a complete halt” to rocket fire, “whether that means a ground operation, an air operation or other special operations.” He did not elaborate.
The area military commander, Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant, told reporters the army “will get those responsible for the attacks in the way we know how.”
Israel’s latest military operation against rocket squads, an offensive in Beit Hanoun, just across from Sderot, ended last week without major achievements. For more than a week, troops, backed by attack helicopters and tanks, went after rocket squads in the town, killing about 50 fighters, but also leaving behind badly damaged buildings, uprooted trees and streets chewed up by tank treads.
But rocket attacks continued from other spots in Gaza while the incursion was under way, and resumed from Beit Hanoun immediately after the troops pulled out. Yesterday, militants fired a total of 14 rockets, and eight landed in Israel, the military said. Four hit the coastal city of Ashkelon, the northernmost point that Palestinian rockets have ever reached. No one was hurt there.
Although civilian killings often set off a cycle of violence, the deaths in Beit Hanoun last week, which Israel said were unintended, did not provoke a suspension of Palestinian talks aimed at forming a more moderate government, aimed at ending Western aid sanctions that have bankrupted the Palestinian Authority. A coalition agreement would also be closely linked to a Hamas-Israel prisoner swap and a promise by Gaza fighters to halt rocket attacks on Israel.
The moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah party, met in Cairo yesterday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss the coalition talks and the potential for renewed peacemaking. Mubarak told Abbas that Palestinians should “speak in one voice” and express “positions that advance the peace process and end Palestinian suffering.”
Later in the day, envoys of the “Quartet” of Mideast mediators — the US, the UN, the EU and Russia — also met in Cairo to discuss peace prospects. It was their first gathering since Hamas took power in March.
Hamas continues to insist it would not recognize Israel even after a new government takes power. Abbas hopes to skirt that problem by a division of labor that would put him in charge of peace talks with Israel, while a government of experts would run daily life in the West Bank and Gaza.
Abbas, elected separately last year, hopes Israel and the West will accept the premise that Hamas is largely ceding power by making room for a 24-member Cabinet of independent professionals.
— With input from agencies
