Latest Qassam rocket Stories

By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli shells killed five people and wounded several others in the Gaza Strip on Monday, including two members of the same family who were riding a donkey cart when they were hit, Palestinian witnesses said. The dead included a 60-year-old woman and her 12-year-old grandson, medics said. The three other Palestinians who were killed on Monday were standing outside an apartment building in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Beit Lahiya, where...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli shell exploded near a crowd of people outside an apartment building in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, killing at least three people and wounding several others, Palestinian witnesses said. Israel has killed around 118 Palestinians in a nearly month-long offensive in Gaza to force militants to release a captured soldier and halt rocket fire on Israeli cities. It was not immediately known whether the three dead were militants or...

By Ari Rabinovitch ASHKELON, Israel (Reuters) - The Israeli citizens of Ashkelon knew it was only a matter of time before a rocket from the Gaza Strip hit their coastal city. A day after a makeshift missile struck near the city center, residents joined calls on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government on Wednesday to intensify its expanding offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza. "The government is not letting the army do what is necessary and the Palestinians are no longer...

By Luke Baker BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Palestinian militants who fired a rocket deeper into Israel than ever before launched it from land that Israeli settlers had occupied until last year, witnesses said on Wednesday. The Hamas-made Qassam rocket was fired from the far north of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening and exploded 12 km (7.5 miles) away in the center of the Israeli city of Ashkelon, damaging a school but causing no injuries. The strike provoked fear among...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli missiles tore through the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza on Wednesday, causing extensive damage and wounding at least three people, as Israel kept pressure on militants to release an abducted soldier. The night-time air strike was launched hours after militants from the governing Hamas movement fired a rocket into a main Israeli city for the first time, an attack that deepened a 10-day-old crisis. Israeli aircraft struck the same...

By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel was poised on Wednesday to broaden a Gaza offensive after Hamas militants fired a rocket into a main Israeli city for the first time, an attack that deepened a 10-day-old crisis over an abducted soldier. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert planned to consult with his security cabinet later in the day to discuss stronger military action after militants carried out their deepest rocket strike yet against Israel, government officials said. An...