Israel retaliates with helicopter attack after Hamas rocket strike

by Ian MacKinnon
Times Online
June 29, 2004

http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/1002/israel-retaliates-with-helicopter-attack-after

Israeli helicopter gunships hit targets in the Gaza Strip last night, after Palestinian rockets had earlier claimed their first Israeli victims in nearly four years.

The gunships hit the offices of a Hamas journal located on the fourth floor of a 16-storey media building in Gaza City.

Minutes later, missiles destroyed a metal foundry in a nearby refugee camp which the Israeli Army said was used to manufacture weapons. There were no reported casualties.

The strikes came shortly after the deployment of Israeli tanks and troops into northern Gaza and the demolition of an empty eight-storey building near the site of an audacious attack on an Israeli army post on Sunday. Militants had used the tall building to fire on rescuers searching for soldiers injured in the attack.

The unrest came after Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, held a two-hour emergency meeting with security chiefs to discuss a Palestinian rocket attack which killed a man and a boy of three, the first fatalities from the crude missiles in nearly four years of violence.

The barrage of crude Qassam rockets killed Mordechai Yosopov, 49, and Afik Ohayon in the town of Sderot, half a mile from the Gaza border. One of the primitive home-made devices landed near a nursery school shortly after parents had dropped off their children for morning classes. Afik Ohayon's mother, Ruthie, was among the nine injured.

But even as Mr Sharon discussed a possible response to the attack he told a closed meeting of Knesset members that he would press on with withdrawal from all 21 Gaza settlements, speeding up the process by making enhanced compensation available immediately for those who leave voluntarily.

Security inside Gaza was tightened yesterday when Israeli forces cut the strip of Palestinian territory into three by closing checkpoints. The move followed the detonation on Sunday of a huge bomb buried in a specially constructed tunnel under an army base that killed one soldier and left five others injured.

Hamas, which had a hand in the audacious tunnel bombing of the base, fired the three rockets from within Gaza that hit Sderot. The first rocket landed just yards from the man, killing him instantly, while doctors battled in vain to save the boy's life.

Windows in the nursery school, its walls painted with flowers, were shattered and the pavement outside was stained with blood. A man's sandal lay amid the debris in the midst of the carnage.

"I heard the blast," said Haim Toperman, who lives next to the nursery. "The scene here was horrific. On the ground a mother was lying on her son. They were covered in blood.The boy suffered severe head wounds."

The boy's father, Yitzhak, told of his devastation. "He was the only thing I had in this world. He's beautiful the way I know him; the way I remember him. My sister called to tell me about the rockets. When Ruthie didn't answer her phone I had a very bad feeling."

A second rocket exploded near a coffee shop while the third landed on the outskirts of the industrial town.

Until yesterday, the 347 Qassam rockets fired by Hamas since the start of the intifada had claimed no lives. The lack of a guidance system makes the rockets inaccurate.

"So far, Sderot had been lucky in the Qassam attacks," Gideon Ezra, a Likud Cabinet minister, said. "But that luck ran out."

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