Palestinians fire rocket from Gaza, and Israel air force retaliates

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Palestinians fire rocket from Gaza, and Israel air force retaliates
by Thghred El-Khodary and Isabel Kershner

GAZA: Palestinian militants fired a long-range rocket from Gaza into the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Tuesday and Israel retaliated with airstrikes against smuggling tunnels and a Hamas outpost in southern Gaza, as Egyptian-brokered talks for a sustainable cease-fire ground on in Cairo with no obvious progress.

No injuries were reported on the Palestinian or Israeli side.

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New weapons in this war between Gaza and Israel, leads to new concerns.

Israel used Gaza as a Laboratory to Test New Weapons
But the rocket that fell near a clinic in central Ashkelon was the first of its kind since a tenuous calm took hold more than two weeks ago, presenting a new challenge to Israeli leaders before elections Feb. 10 and raising the possibility of a military escalation should the Egyptian initiative fail.

The defense minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, said Tuesday, "We promised peace and safety to those living in southern Israel, and we will deliver."

Israel pulled its troops out of Gaza on Jan. 18, ending a devastating 22-day offensive that Israel said was primarily meant to deter such rocket attacks. Israel and Hamas, the Islamic group that rules Gaza, declared separate cease-fires. But tit-for-tat attacks have spiraled since Jan. 27, when Palestinian militants detonated a bomb that killed an Israeli soldier patrolling the border.

Speaking at the annual Herzliya Conference on security and policy issues, as the warplanes were over Gaza, Barak added: "We now have to translate the military success to success on the ground - and that is not far from coming."

Until Tuesday, the trickle of rockets and mortars shells fired into Israel had mostly landed in open areas close to the Gaza border. Ashkelon is a city of 120,000 people about 16 kilometers, or 10 miles, north of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast.

Hamas denies that it is firing the rockets. The Gaza branch of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militia nominally affiliated with Hamas's main rival, Fatah, has taken responsibility for some of the launchings. Others have been claimed by smaller groups, or have gone unclaimed.

In Gaza, some explained the rockets as a means of testing and challenging Israel, Egypt and Hamas.

Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said that the Israeli decision to initially declare a unilateral cease-fire, without reaching agreements with Hamas, "opens the door for some factions to prove themselves at this time."

A Fatah leader, Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, suggested that the Aksa brigades and others were reacting to the fact that they had been excluded from the Cairo talks. "Given the absence of national consensus regarding the cease-fire in Cairo," he said, "no one can blame any party" and "no party can oblige the other."

Israel rejects such explanations and holds the Hamas rulers of Gaza responsible for all the fire. "Hamas has been dealing with its political opponents extremely violently," said Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, "but we have seen no action against the groups" firing the rockets.

This, Regev said, indicated that Hamas had given the groups "a green light."

"If there is to be an escalation," he said, it will be clear to the world that Hamas had "torpedoed" the calm.

Egypt has indicated that it is trying to reach a formula for consolidating the cease-fire by Thursday. Hamas representatives were in Cairo on Tuesday for more talks.

In return for a cease-fire over the next year or more, Hamas is demanding the lifting of Israel's 18-month economic embargo on Gaza and the opening of the border crossings for regular commerce.

Israel says it is only prepared to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza for now and has conditioned the full operation of the border crossings on the resolution of the case of a captured Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit.

Hamas has been holding Shalit since 2006 and demands the release of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners for his return. The Islamic group has rejected any linking of the issue of the border crossings to his release.