JERUSALEM, 6 January 2005 — Palestinian rockets slammed into an Israeli Army base in a new strike launched from the Gaza Strip injuring many soldiers yesterday.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he expected to have a new government in place by next week after the small ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party agreed to join a new coalition.
Twelve people, 11 of them soldiers, were wounded in the attack on the Nahaloz base, close to the border with Gaza, said an army spokesman. One of the rockets hit the mess hall, where cooks were preparing lunch, and another struck near the base commander’s office, sources said.
The attack would be met with a strong response “on the widest possible scale,” a military source said. Just hours earlier, two other makeshift rockets, of the type usually fired by Hamas, landed harmlessly in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.
PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas has been trying to persuade Palestinians to halt the rocket attacks, arguing that they are counterproductive as they usually land on Palestinian territory and invite hard-hitting Israeli reprisals.
Overnight, Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians after a group of them infiltrated the Erez border crossing.
The victims were identified as belonging to the Islamic Jihad group and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.
Three Palestinian policemen were wounded during the incident, the Israeli Army added. It was unclear how the gunmen managed to enter the terminal.
Abbas’ appeal for an end to the militarization of the Palestinian uprising has not only been so far shunned by the likes of Hamas, it has also failed to win over the general public, according to opinion polls.
However, he still looks poised to clinch victory in Sunday’s presidential election, with opinion polls putting him at least 30 points ahead of his nearest rival to replace the late Yasser Arafat.
At a rally in the West Bank city of Hebron, the moderate former premier hammered out the themes that have characterized his campaign, naming East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, calling for the release of all prisoners and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
At the end of the week, he is likely to travel to annexed East Jerusalem after getting a tentative green light from Israel.
“If the Palestinians ask us to let Abu Mazen (Abbas) campaign in the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, we will look at it favorably,” said a source in Sharon’s office.
Israel never allowed Arafat to visit Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state and which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Civil servants, police and military said that maximum efforts had been made to pave the way for a “free and democratic” vote.
But independent candidate Mustafa Barghouti accused the army of preventing him from crossing back into the West Bank from Gaza for a final campaign push, calling into question “the freedom, fairness, and legitimacy” of the vote.
— With input from agencies
