JERUSALEM, 30 September 2004 — Israeli troops killed seven Palestinians yesterday in raids in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as a rocket attack from Gaza killed two children in Sderot.
The renewed rocket fire in spite of an Israeli incursion designed to snuff out such attacks was a blow to the Jewish state as it seeks to prevent Palestinians portraying its planned pullout of settlers from Gaza next year as a victory.
Two makeshift Qassam rockets hit a residential block in the town of Sderot close to Israel’s fenced border with Gaza, killing the two children as they played on the eve of the Jewish festival of Sukkot. They were a girl aged two and a boy aged four.
Thirteen other residents were injured in the town that has borne the brunt of Qassam attacks, emergency services said.
A rocket killed two Israelis in the town three months ago, but hundreds of missile volleys from the Gaza Strip have done more to spread terror than inflict casualties during the past four years of conflict.
Shortly after the attack, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at targets in Gaza’s Jabalya refugee camp. One Palestinian was killed and at least three others were wounded.
Israeli forces who stormed into northern Gaza to try to stop rocket firing shot dead a gunman earlier yesterday as well as youths of 17 and 14 in a stone-throwing crowd. A boy of 13 was killed in another incident in Gaza.
Troops killed two Palestinians in raids into West Bank cities.
Violence has spiraled since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his plan to evacuate 8,000 Jewish settlers to “disengage” from conflict with the Palestinians.
Rocket attacks have been seized on by right-wing opponents of Sharon’s plan, who say Israel cannot afford to leave the Gaza Strip because it will only embolden the Palestinians.
“We should stop the disengagement process and seize all positions opposite Sderot,” said Ehud Yatom, an opponent of Sharon’s plan within his Likud party.
Groups like Hamas vow to keep fighting until Israelis had evacuated “all of Palestine”. They are dedicated to destroying Israel as well as regaining the West Bank and Gaza, occupied by the Jewish state in the 1967 Middle East War.
“We begin the fifth year of the intifada (uprising) and we will keep firing rockets and mortars, we will continue our jihad until all of Palestine is returned,” said Nizar Rayan, a Jabalya Hamas leader brandishing an assault rifle and grenade launcher.
The rockets have become psychologically important for Palestinians now that Israel has succeeded in limiting their bombings.
Critics of the raids into Gaza say Israel risks getting sucked back into fighting just as it is preparing to withdraw.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that Palestinians should end their revolt as it was spreading terrorism and hindering creation of an independent Palestinian state.
“It is time to end the uprising. We want a Palestinian state. The (US) president wants the establishment of a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people which exists side by side with Israel,” Powell told Arab satellite television Al-Jazeera. His comments were translated into Arabic.
“This will only happen when terrorism ends. But the uprising has helped spread terrorism and has not accomplished anything during these years except adding to the deterioration of the Palestinian economic situation and the deterioration of living standards in general among Palestinians,” he said.
