Palestinian attack wounds dozens of Israeli troops

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Palestinian attack wounds dozens of Israeli troops
By Yaniv Zohar, AP
Published: 11 September 2007

A Palestinian rocket exploded in an Israeli army base early Tuesday, wounding dozens of soldiers as they slept in their tents and drawing Israeli calls for a major military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was scheduled to meet later today with top military and security officials, where they were expected to discuss a response to the attack, Israeli officials said.

The wounded soldiers were all recent recruits undergoing basic training at the army's Zikim base, just north of the Gaza-Israel border, and were asleep when the rocket hit an empty tent, the army said. More than 40 soldiers in nearby tents were wounded, including 12 who remained in serious condition, the army said.

Ambulances roared up to the base's gate after the rocket hit before 2 a.m., and army helicopters evacuated the seriously wounded. The emergency room at Barzilai Hospital in the nearby city of Ashkelon was swamped with incoming casualties, and medics emerged from the hospital carrying empty stretchers covered in blood.

The injury toll was the highest ever sustained in a single Palestinian rocket attack, and the strike came at a time when Israeli politicians and defense officials have been calling for a more aggressive Israeli response to the near-daily rocket barrages out of Gaza.

"Long ago, several years ago, we should have responded strongly ... In the end we will have no choice but to act," Cabinet minister Eli Yishai told Army Radio.

In an initial response, the army said ground forces attacked the area used by the militants to attack the army base.

Four Palestinian civilians between ages 5 and 21, members of the same family, were wounded, according to Dr. Muawiya Hassanin of Gaza's Health Ministry. Two were treated briefly and released, and two girls — ages 7 and 17 — remained hospitalized, Hassanin said.

Two small extremist groups, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees, claimed responsibility for the attack in a joint statement faxed to reporters. Fearing retaliation, Islamic Jihad ordered its militants to avoid using cell phones and public transportation so they could not be tracked and targeted by Israeli forces.

Islamic Jihad has been responsible for nearly all rocket fire out of Gaza in recent weeks. But Israel has said it holds Hamas responsible for the violence, since it controls Gaza and has done nothing to halt the attacks.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum praised Tuesday's attack as a "victory from God." And in downtown Gaza City, a boy dressed in an Islamic Jihad scarf handed out sweets to motorists.

Another rocket hit an Israeli kibbutz near Gaza later Tuesday morning, causing no casualties. Hamas militants announced they had launched a mortar barrage at Kerem Shalom, a border crossing where humanitarian aid crosses from Israel into Gaza.

Crude homemade rockets land in southern Israel nearly every day. Although the rockets are inaccurate, they have killed 12 people in the past seven years, injured dozens and disrupted daily life in the area.

Attacks last week on the frequently targeted town of Sderot, including one that landed near a crowded nursery school, led parents to pull their children out of school and brought demands for harsh retaliation.

Israel routinely carries out air attacks and brief ground incursions meant to halt rocket-launching squads. But so far, the army has not found a way to halt the rockets.

Israel's Security Cabinet last week rejected calls for a large-scale Gaza invasion but threatened to cut water, electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza. Tuesday's attack could increase pressure on Olmert to order a major ground offensive in Gaza.

Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, ending 38 years of military rule, but militants continued launching rockets at Israeli towns. The Israeli army has mounted several large-scale military operations in Gaza over the past two years, with heavy casualties on both sides, but those moves had no long-term effect on the number of rockets hitting Israel.

The pre-dawn attack comes a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders met in Jerusalem in advance of a November conference called by U.S. President George Bush.

At their three-hour summit conference Monday, Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas discussed "ways of advancing the peace process and of reaching a two-state solution," said Olmert spokesman David Baker.

Abbas called the talks "successful" and said two working groups would be set up to draft outlines of a peace accord in advance of the November conference.

In gestures toward Abbas, Israel also pledged to release some Palestinian prisoners during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins this week, and work on easing travel restrictions in the West Bank.

Olmert hopes to bolster Abbas and his Western-backed government in the West Bank after Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in June. Abbas' subsequent ouster of Hamas from the Palestinian government has freed the moderate leader to pursue peace efforts with Israel.

Abbas has condemned the recent wave of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel, saying the barrages are threatening the peace process. While Abbas claims to have authority over Gaza, he has little influence there following the Hamas takeover.

Palestinian attack wounds dozens of Israeli troops - Independent Online Edition > Middle East

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More on this situation

Israel to retaliate after army base rocket attack
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 12 September 2007
Israel firmly laid the blame on Hamas for a rocket attack on a western Negev army base at 2am yesterday which left at least 35 soldiers wounded in hospital – one critically and two severely.

The rocket landed on an empty tent at the Zikkim base but hurled shrapnel into neighbouring tents where troops had been sleeping, causing the biggest single injury toll of any Qassam rocket attack.

Tzipi Livni, Israel's Foreign Minister, hinted at possible retaliatory cut-offs of electricity and water to Gaza when she said, "we have means, means which are not only military" for responding to the attack.

While responsibility for the rocket strike was claimed by two other militant groups, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees, Ms Livni said: "It doesn't really matter which organisation took responsibility. Gaza is entirely controlled by Hamas. Hamas has the ability to stop it and has decided not to do that."

Hamas made no effort to distance itself from the attack with a spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, declaring: "We consider this a victory from God for the resistance. We consider the resistance as the legitimate right of the Palestinians to defend themselves and restore their rights."

Ms Livni used the attack – which prompted renewed calls from politicians for a full-scale military operation in Gaza – to underpin the government's strategy of seeking to boost the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank at the expense of Hamas.

Eli Yishai, a cabinet minister in the religious party Shas, said Israel would in the end "have no choice but to act" and called for cancellation of the international peace conference including Israel, Mr Abbas and his Ramallah-based emergency government, planned by the US for November.

But Ms Livni insisted in the wake of an attack, which the military said had injured 69 soldiers in all: "On the one hand we need to act against the terrorists in Gaza. On the other hand we need to reach an understanding with the moderates in the West Bank."

Several families of soldiers at the base complained about the lack of protection for troops sleeping under canvas only a kilometre inside the Israeli border with Gaza. An alert was sounded before the rocket landed but most of the sleeping soldiers were unable to reach shelter in time.

Shuki Wolfus, whose son had been due to join the Israel Defence Forces' (IDF) orchestra as a trumpeter next week but had a leg amputated , told the Ynet news service: "This could have been prevented. Why should soldiers be placed at a base without fortification?"

The health ministry in Gaza said two Palestinian girls aged seven and 17 were in hospital last night after being wounded in an Israeli missile strike that followed the attack. The IDF said it had fired a missile at the site where the rockets had been launched but had carried out no other operations in Gaza yesterday.

The signs were that the Israeli cabinet will continue authorising "pinpoint" air and ground strikes against the Qassam rockets.

The IDF also said it had closed the Kerem Shalom crossing in south-east Gaza after militants fired a series of mortars at it.

Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, who met Ms Livni yesterday, said the groups behind the rocket attack were seeking to "undermine the process of negotiations between Israel and Abu Mazen [Mr Abbas]".

Israel to retaliate after army base rocket attack - Independent Online Edition > Middle East