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Israel's DM, Amir Peretz, left, visits the house of his neighbor after it was hit by a rocket fired by Palestinians (Ap)
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| By Associated Press May 31, 2006 |
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Palestinian militants fired homemade rockets at an Israeli town near the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, and one landed near the home of Israel's defense minister.
The violent Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for firing three Qassam rockets, including two that hit residential areas in the border town of Sderot, home to Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired hundreds of crude rockets at Israeli border towns in more than five years of fighting. Israel has launched air strikes at rocket squads, but has been unable to stop the barrage.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces killed three members of an Islamic Jihad rocket squad in the military's first ground incursion into Gaza since Israel's pullout from the coastal strip last year.
On Wednesday, Islamic Jihad fired three Qassams, two of which landed in a residential area of Sderot, the Israeli military said.
One of those rockets punched a hole through the roof of a home. Israeli media reported that it struck a few dozen meters from Peretz' home. The army declined comment on that report. A second rocket landed in a garden.
Peretz visited the home struck shortly after the attack.
"We will find the way to take actions that prevent these organizations from firing toward Sderot and other communities," he said. "Therefore I hope that the (Palestinian) population understands that these organizations are bringing them toward a catastrophe."
Paramedics treated two Sderot residents for shock, and Israel responded with artillery fire at Gaza.
Eli Moyal, the mayor of Sderot, harshly criticized the government's response.
"Our luck is that the Palestinians don't know how to aim precisely," he told Israel Radio. "There are only two ways to stop this -- either destroying the area where they fire the rockets from or controlling that area."
However, the Israeli military has been reluctant to launch a major ground offensive in Gaza. Tuesday's incursion lasted just five hours, and troops sneaked 2 miles into Gaza.
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