Rocket Attack Kills 2 Israelis

A volley of crude Kassam rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip slammed into the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday, killing two children and wounding more than two dozen people on the eve of a Jewish holiday.

The rocket strike came as Israeli troops and armor were in the midst of a large-scale raid in northern Gaza -- an operation that was launched to halt such attacks against Israeli communities close to the tightly guarded border with the Palestinian territory.

Six Palestinians, two of them teenagers, were killed by Israeli troops in or near the sprawling Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, and at least three other Palestinians died in scattered violence elsewhere in Gaza and the West Bank.

Word of the attack in Sderot came as Israelis were ushering in the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, which is marked by family gatherings in small huts built on balconies and in backyards. Many people ducked away from celebrations, transfixed by television footage of shouting rescuers, bloodied victims and weeping onlookers.

Rescuers said one of the rockets hit a home, killing a 2-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy. A second Kassam rocket fell in an alleyway filled with passersby, spraying shrapnel in all directions.

Israel has been on high alert through the season of holy days that began this month with Rosh Hashanah and extends into next week.

The West Bank and Gaza were closed off before the start of the holidays, but last week, a suicide bomber made her way to the outskirts of Jerusalem. Two paramilitary police officers were killed when they confronted her at a checkpoint and she detonated her explosives.

The militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the Kassam attack. Its guerrillas routinely use the fields and orchards of northern Gaza, as well as the outskirts of the Jabaliya camp, as launching pads for the homemade projectiles.

Because the firings are carried out in hit-and-run fashion, even the heavy presence of Israeli troops rarely halts the launches.

Palestinian militants fire rockets in the direction of Israeli towns almost every day, but the primitive weapons lack accuracy and rarely cause serious damage or casualties.

But an Israeli toddler and a middle-aged man were killed June 28 when a rocket fell outside a nursery school in Sderot. They were the first Kassam fatalities of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, now entering its fifth year.

The Israeli military response to Wednesday’s incident could be harsh. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Sycamore Ranch is only a few miles from Sderot, and he tends to take a very personal view of attacks on the town.

Israeli media reported that at a Cabinet meeting several weeks ago, Sharon pounded a fist on the table and asked military chiefs why Israel shouldn’t respond to rocket fire with artillery strikes against northern Gaza.

Atty. Gen. Menachem Mazuz noted that indiscriminate artillery fire toward a densely populated area would constitute a war crime, the reports said.

Kassam attacks pose a major political problem for Sharon as he tries to move ahead with his initiative to withdraw from Gaza by late next year. His opponents point to firings as a sign that, should Israel pull out, Hamas would have a free hand in staging cross-border assaults.

Israeli intelligence officials say the Palestinian militants, with the help of such organizations as the Lebanon-based Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah, are acquiring more sophisticated rocket and missile technology.

The swath of northern Gaza used by Hamas and other militant groups to fire Kassams is a battered and battle-weary place.

The agricultural village of Beit Hanoun was besieged by Israeli troops for a month this summer, an operation that left at least 20 Palestinians dead and dozens of orchards and olive groves bulldozed.

In the latest foray, more than 100 Israeli armored vehicles pushed their way into northern Gaza, sealing off the agricultural hamlet of Beit Lahiya.

Villagers huddled in their homes as Palestinian gunmen fired on the troops, who responded with shells and machine-gun fire.

Israeli authorities this month inaugurated a warning system that was meant to sound the alarm in Sderot whenever a Kassam rocket was incoming. But the system failed its first test, and officials acknowledged that it would need refinement.

Even if the system were up and running, residents would have less than half a minute’s warning of a strike.