Israel promises harsh response to deadly rocket attack

Israel today promised a punishing response 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 home-made rocket exploded about 350 feet from the home of Israel’s defence minister in Sderot, a favourite target of the militants because it is less than a mile from the Gaza fence.

The rocket killed a 57-year-old woman walking to the corner grocery 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.

Militants affiliated with 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 Wednesday evening to discuss a response to the militants’ attack. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert talked to Peretz and generals before the meeting, said his spokeswoman, Miri Eisin. Olmert is in Los Angeles, California, attending a meeting of Jewish leaders.

Olmert told reporters there, “The operations in Gaza will continue without letup.”

Peretz vowed a harsh response. “We will act against anyone involved in firing Qassam (rockets),” he vowed. “The terror organisations 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 militants, 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 underway, and resumed from Beit Hanoun immediately after the troops pulled out. On Wednesday, militants fired a total of 13 rockets, and eight landed in Israel, the military said.

Four hit the coastal city of Ashkelon, the northern-most point that Palestinian rockets have ever reached. No one was hurt there.

Although the home-made projectiles are primitive and rarely cause casualties, they have killed eight other people since 2001. Last March a father and son were killed by a rocket blast at Nahal Oz, a village just outside Gaza. The near-daily rocket fire has badly unnerved residents of places, like Sderot, that are frequent targets.

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 militants to halt rocket attacks on Israel.

The moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah Party, met in Cairo on Wednesday 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 recognise Israel even after a new government takes power. Abbas hopes to skirt that problem by a division of labour 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.