Gaza rockets strike deeper inside Israel

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110324/wl_nm/us_palestinians_israel_violence

Gaza rockets strike deeper inside Israel

By Nidal al-Mughrabi Nidal Al-mughrabi – Thu Mar 24, 10:35 am ET

GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian rockets struck deep inside Israel Thursday, landing

closer to the urban sprawl south of Tel Aviv, and Israeli aircraft pounded

targets in Gaza in a surging conflict that has raised fears of a new war.

Israeli police said long-range Grad rockets fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza

Strip hit Ashdod and an area north of the Mediterranean port. There were no

immediate reports of casualties.

Emergency services said one of the rockets landed near Yavneh, a town 45 km (28

miles) from Gaza and 20 km (12 miles) from Tel Aviv. That area came under rocket

attack in the December 2008-January 2009 Gaza war.

Violence along the Gaza border has worsened in recent days and a bomb attack

Wednesday in Jerusalem that Israeli police blamed on Palestinian militants

killed one woman and injured 30 people. It was the first such bombing in the

city since 2004.

Britain identified the woman as a British national and Israeli police said she

was a tourist.

The Israeli military said five rockets and a mortar bomb from Gaza exploded in

Israel, causing no casualties. Schools remained closed in Ashdod and in

Beersheba, a city in the Negev desert struck several times in the past week.

Israeli aircraft carried out a series of strikes in Gaza, attacking smuggling

tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, a Hamas training camp, a rocket crew and a

power transformer, causing blackouts in the enclave.

Medical workers said no one was injured.

" The responsibility lies entirely on Hamas... we know how to act and have proven

this in the past, we will strike proportionately when needed, " Israeli Civil

Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Israel Radio.

CONFLICT ACCELERATES

Israel says the air strikes have been a response to rocket barrages. Hamas says

its attacks in the past week have been in reaction to Israeli strikes. Five

Palestinian militants and four civilians, three of them children, were killed by

Israeli fire in Gaza Tuesday.

The upswing of violence in the past few days has led to fears of a new war

between Israel and the Islamist Hamas, which has ruled the small Mediterranean

coastal territory since 2007, after months of relative quiet.

Wednesday, militants in Gaza fired more than a dozen rockets and mortar bombs

across the border.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Islamic Jihad militant group said two of

its leaders were detained by security forces of the Western-backed Palestinian

Authority for questioning about the Jerusalem bombing.

No group claimed responsibility for planting the bomb, which exploded near a bus

stop.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu warned militant groups in the Gaza

Strip Wednesday that the Jewish state would act decisively to defend itself.

He threatened a lengthy " exchange of blows " with Palestinian militants, though

officials from both sides have said they want to prevent a repeat of Israel's

2009 three-week war on the mainly desert enclave.

" Calm will be met with calm, " an Islamic Jihad leader said.

Israel launched the Gaza war with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket

fire, and killed around 1,400 Palestinians in the conflict, drawing heavy

international censure.

Hamas had mostly held its fire since then.

(Writing by Heller; editing by Mark Heinrich)