JERUSALEM, 29 June 2004 — Rockets fired by Palestinians from Gaza killed two people in Israel yesterday for the first time — a three-year-old boy and a man — in a surge of violence ahead of an Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip.
A strong Israeli military response appeared likely after two rockets slammed into the street outside a kindergarten in the southern town of Sderot. Some 12 hours earlier, Palestinians blew up an army post in the Gaza Strip, killing one soldier.
At least four Palestinians were also killed in the latest spiral of violence in the area, where Israel and Palestinians have been locked in a fight to claim victory before implementation of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Gaza pullout plan.
Ezeddine Al-Qassam, the armed wing of the Hamas group, claimed responsibility for the Sderot attack, which evoked fears in Israel of rockets raining down on southern towns after a Gaza withdrawal.
Three-year-old Afik Zahavi died when a makeshift Qassam exploded next to the sidewalk as he walked with his mother to kindergarten. She was critically wounded. Across the street, 49-year-old Moredchai Yosopov was killed next to a park bench.
“Who is watching over (our children)? Nobody. That’s my message to the prime minister,” said Afik’s father Yitzhak Ohayon. “We were supposed to go to his end-of-year party in kindergarten tomorrow...and now instead we’ll be going to his funeral.”
Meanwhile, Sharon survived three no confidence motions yesterday — one by a single vote — as the main opposition Labour Party swung against him despite promising to back his Gaza pullout plan.
Parliament’s weekly no-confidence votes have little chance of toppling Sharon because his foes are short of the 61-vote absolute majority they would need. But losing one would be a major political embarrassment.
