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Militants Fire More Rocket at Israel Town

Posted on: Monday, 4 October 2004, 06:00 CDT

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Despite a massive Israeli offensive aimed at preventing rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinian militants fired off two more rockets early Monday at the Israeli town of Sderot, lightly wounding one person, according to rescue workers.

Ongoing violence in Gaza on Monday killed at least six Palestinians, according to the army and local officials, bringing the number of Palestinians killed during the nearly weeklong operation to 64. Three Israelis were killed during the fighting and two others were killed Wednesday in a rocket attack on Sderot.

The Israeli raid was the largest in Gaza in four years of fighting. Army commanders were talking of a weekslong operation, while officials looked even further ahead - to Israel's planned evacuation of settlements from Gaza next year.

The operation in northern Gaza gathered momentum late Sunday when about 25 tanks moved into Beit Hanoun, the town closest to the Israeli border and the town of Sderot across the fence.

Israeli forces have cleared a 5-mile buffer zone in Gaza to move its towns out of range of the rockets, but militants keep trying.

Early Monday, two more rockets were fired at Sderot, lightly injuring one man with shrapnel. The Hamas militant group claimed responsibility for the rocket attack.

Also Monday, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a group of Palestinians in Jebaliya, witnesses and hospital officials said. There were reports of casualties. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Earlier, Israeli troops killed four Palestinian militants as they tried to set off a bomb in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, the army said. The four were killed in a helicopter missile strike, the army said.

Palestinians identified the four as Hamas militants, one of them a field commander in northern Gaza, Fares Masri, 29, the brother of Hamas spokesman Musher Masri, who came to the hospital to identify the body.

A few hours earlier, Israeli forces targeted a local Hamas commander and another militant in a Gaza City air strike, the army said. The commander was seriously wounded in the attack. A second militant and a bystander were also wounded, hospital officials said.

Israeli troops also killed a Palestinian civilian in Beit Lahiya while he was standing outside his house, Palestinian witnesses said.

In eastern Jebaliya, an off-duty Palestinian police officer was killed by a gunshot wound to the head when an Israeli helicopter opened fire as he stood on his balcony, hospital officials and relatives said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on either situation.

In a separate incident in Jebaliya, the army said it shot an armed man who was throwing grenades and planting a bomb.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged Sunday to expand the operation to stop the rocket fire. "The forces will have to remain there as long as this danger exists," he told Army Radio.

Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the army chief, said the army was looking at being in Gaza "not in terms of days, but weeks."

On a tour Monday of a hospital in Jebaliya, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath responded to the threat to continue the raid. "We will not accept this," he said.

Israeli officials fear that continuing rocket fire might undermine already shaky support for Sharon's Gaza pullout plan. Critics warn that after an Israeli exit, the rocket attacks would only escalate.

Many of the critics are from Sharon's own Likud Party, which has voted against the plan twice in different frameworks. Sharon and Likud have for decades been the main forces behind settlement construction and expansion, and Sharon's party members have not taken kindly to his change of heart.

Presenting his plan to evacuate all 21 Gaza settlements and four small ones from the West Bank, Sharon said the presence of 8,000 Jewish settlers among 1.3 million Palestinians had become untenable, and the Gaza pullout would contribute to strengthening Israel's hold on main settlement blocs in the West Bank. About 236,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank.

In the meantime, militants in Gaza are stepping up their attacks to show that they are driving the Israelis out, while Israel counters with additional force to stop the militants and reverse the impression of fleeing under fire.

Raanan Gissin, a top Sharon adviser, said the offensive would pave the way for the withdrawal by striking a tough blow against the militants.

"When we leave, it won't be under the threat of fire," Gissin said. "We have seized the initiative."

The fighting, concentrated in Jebaliya, has caused heavy damage. Palestinians say the Israeli forces have destroyed homes, torn up roads and left a kindergarten in rubble.

Previous Israeli military operations have halted suddenly when civilian casualties soared, and there were signs that the international community was reaching its limit.

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