Region | Palestinian Territories
Hamas fires longest range missile at Israel: statement
Palestinian fighters attacked a major city in southern Israel with rocket fire on Friday, a serious escalation of widening violence that has all but buried a five-month-old truce.
- AP
- Published: 14:32 November 14, 2008
- Hamas supporters demonstrate in Gaza City on Friday. Palestinian fighters sent rockets flying at an Israeli city.
- Image Credit: AP
Gaza City: Palestinian fighters attacked a major city in southern Israel with rocket fire on Friday, a serious escalation of widening violence that has all but buried a five-month-old truce.
The rocket barrages launched at the city of Ashkelon, 17km north of Gaza, by Hamas fighters caused panic but no casualties.
Hamas fighters also unleashed a barrage of rockets at the nearby Israeli town of Sderot, where rescue services said one person was lightly wounded by shrapnel. Several rockets hit open areas.
The Israeli military warned residents of communities near Gaza to remain in their homes, and police and rescue services went on high alert in preparation for more attacks.
Yesterday's barrages followed an earlier strike by Israeli aircraft targeting fighters firing rockets in northern Gaza. Dr Moaiya Hassanain of Gaza's Health Ministry said two gunmen were moderately wounded.
The fighting was the latest in a week-long cycle of violence that has threatened to unravel a truce reached last June. Still, leaders in Israel and Gaza's Hamas government said they hoped the calm would be restored.
"We will keep protecting our soldiers and people and keep acting against attempts to interrupt the cease-fire, but if the other side will want or wish to keep the cease-fire alive, we'll consider it seriously," Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said during a stop in southern Israel.
The renewed rocket fire from Gaza has prompted Israel to seal its border crossings with the territory, halting shipments of food aid and fuel.
The military said Palestinians launched at least four Grad-type Katyusha rockets into Ashkelon. The Katyushas are believed to be smuggled into Gaza, and have longer ranges than the crude homegrown rockets usually fired by fighters.
Zionist crime
With 120,000 residents, Ashkelon is by far the biggest Israeli town in rocket range. In the past, Israel has responded harshly to attacks on the city.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, and said it fired deep into Israel to demonstrate the price the Jewish state would pay if the truce collapsed.
"The resistance ... is able to hit the Zionist depth," said Hamas lawmaker Mushir Al Masri. "Either there's full commitment to the truce and all its conditions, or the resistance will have a position on every Zionist crime." The Egyptian-mediated truce took hold last June, and has largely halted a cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks and deadly Israeli reprisals. The cease-fire began to disintegrate last week when Israeli forces entered Gaza to try destroy what the military said was a tunnel dug by fighters to carry out a planned cross-border raid.
Eleven fighters have been killed in more than a week of fighting, and some 140 rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza at Israel.
Hamas, like Israel, said it wants to continue the truce, but events signalled the opposite is happening.
Mahmoud Zahar, a Gaza Hamas leader, warned Israel in a Friday sermon, "If you want to leave the truce, we are ready. And if you want to continue it, then abide by it." Israel kept the crossings into Gaza sealed for a tenth straight day yesterday, forcing the UN to suspend its food aid distribution to 750,000 Gaza residents because its warehouses have run out of food, said John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
The 20,000 Palestinians due to pick up aid parcels today would be sent home empty-handed, Ging said. The parcels contain flour, oil, sugar, rice and canned meat. "Until we are resupplied, we won't have food," Ging said.
Swaths of Gaza City suffered blackouts Friday after Gaza's power plant shut down on Thursday evening, citing a lack of industrial fuel. Much of Gaza is powered by electricity supplied directly from Israel and Egypt, however, and that flow continued uninterrupted.
Gaza City bakers reported high demand for bread because the blackouts meant residents could not bake at home.
Poorer Gaza residents typically bake their own bread with UN-donated flour.
In Brussels, the European Commission urged Israel to reopen its border crossings.
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