JERUSALEM – Israel promised a punishing response to a deadly Palestinian rocket attack Wednesday near the home of the country’s defense minister.
The rocket – one of at least eight that struck Israel during the day – killed a 57-year-old woman walking to the grocery store in the Israeli town of Sderot near the Gaza border and raised the specter of a large-scale offensive against militant rocket squads.
Militants affiliated with the Palestinians’ ruling Hamas group and Islamic Jihad both claimed responsibility for the fatal Sderot attack, calling it retaliation for 19 civilians killed by Israeli shelling last week in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
“The occupation hasn’t stopped attacking Palestinians before or after Beit Hanoun, so we say resistance is a right of Palestinians,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.
The deadly homemade rocket exploded near the home of Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz in Sderot. The town of 20,000 is a favorite target of the militants because it is less than a mile from the Gaza fence. But Wednesday’s attack was the first deadly strike there since the Gaza Strip evacuation last year.
The rocket badly wounded a member of the minister’s security detail. Another rocket fired later at Sderot seriously wounded a teenager, the rescue service said.
Peretz promised a harsh response and convened an emergency meeting of senior security officials. He said Israel will act against anyone involved in firing rockets.
“The terror organizations will pay a heavy price,” he said.
Another senior member of the Cabinet, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, said Israel must expand its operations to halt rocket fire, “whether that means a ground operation, an air operation or other special operations.”
The area military commander, Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant, said the army “will get those responsible for the attacks in the way we know how.”
On Wednesday, militants fired 13 rockets, eight of which landed in Israel, the military said. Four hit the coastal city of Ashkelon, the northernmost point that Palestinian rockets have reached, although nobody was hurt there.
Although the homemade projectiles are primitive and rarely cause casualties, they have killed eight other people since 2001. Last March a father and son were killed by a rocket blast at Nahal Oz, a village just outside Gaza.
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