Palestinian Rocket Wounds 2-Year-Old

JERUSALEM – A rocket fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza wounded a 2-year-old boy in a community on the Gaza-Israel border, Israeli police and rescue services said Sunday.

The toddler was hit by shrapnel and taken to hospital, and his mother was being treated for shock, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

AP Television News footage showed the boy and his mother leaving the hospital after treatment.

The rocket scored a direct hit on a house in Kibbutz Zikim, an Israeli communal farm less than a mile from Gaza, Rosenfeld said. Initial reports said the rocket hit inside the nearby Zikim military base, where a direct rocket hit in September wounded more than 40 soldiers.

Palestinian militants regularly launch rockets and mortars into Israel from Gaza, drawing Israeli incursions and airstrikes aimed at halting the fire.

(This version CORRECTS that wounded child is boy, not girl)