Reuters
Rockets Kill 2 Israeli Children, 9 Palestinians Die
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2004
By Rami Amichai
SDEROT, Israel (Reuters) - Palestinian militants eluding an army crackdown killed two Israeli children in a rocket attack from Gaza on Wednesday and troops killed nine Palestinians in raids in the coastal strip and the West Bank.
The renewed rocket fire despite an Israeli incursion aimed at snuffing out such attacks was a blow to the Jewish state as it seeks to prevent militants 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 a girl aged 2 and a boy aged 4 as they played on the eve of the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
"I saw one little child without his legs. We tried to help the other one but it was too late," said neighbor Haviv Ben Abbo, who rushed to the scene when he heard the boom. "All our town is crying."
Thirteen other residents were injured in the town that has borne the brunt of Qassam attacks, emergency services said.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) threatened that Israel "would respond with severity and use all measures to respond and stop the firing of Qassam," an aide said.
A rocket killed two Israelis in the town three months ago, but hundreds of missile volleys from the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) have done more to spread terror than inflict casualties during the past four years of conflict.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian gunman and youths aged 17 and 14 in a crowd of stone throwers. A 13-year-old boy was killed in another Gaza incident. Two Palestinian militants were killed in raids in the West Bank.
Shortly after the Sderot attack, Israeli helicopters launched three air strikes in Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp, a stronghold of Islamist militants behind rocket attacks.
An Israeli military source said the helicopters had targeted Palestinians as they were preparing to fire a Qassam rocket.
Three Palestinians, including a policeman, were killed and at least eight others wounded. In yet another air strike, Israel destroyed an Islamic charity office in a caravan in Gaza City. The Israeli army said the office funded attacks on Israelis.
SPIRALLING VIOLENCE
Israeli security sources said the military would step up operations in northern Gaza following the latest rocket attack.
"The army knows what to do and will deepen its efforts ... more forces will have to be deployed," a senior source said. Later, Palestinian witnesses reported Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers rolling into Jabalya as other troops took up positions on rooftops.
Witnesses said the tank treads tore up some farm fields and orchards and also damaged several houses.
Israel Radio said Sharon ordered the Israeli army to send more forces into northern Gaza to set up buffer zones around areas from where Qassams are launched. Additional reserve troops could be called to help in the operation, the radio said.
Violence has spiralled since 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 militants.
Islamic 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 militants now that suicide bombings have become less frequent.
Critics of the raids into Gaza say Israel risks getting sucked back into fighting just as it is preparing to withdraw.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza City, Ori Lewis, Dan Williams and Allyn Fisher-llan in Jerusalem)
SOURCE
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