AT LEAST one Palestinian was killed and three wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian vehicle last night in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, close to the Egyptian border.
The Israeli military said the vehicle targeted was carrying “terrorists”.
Palestinian sources confirmed that four missiles were fired at “a government car”. The attack came after Israeli aircraft had pounded targets across Gaza earlier in the day in the most serious flare-up in tensions in the area in months.
The air strikes, which targeted Hamas training facilities and smuggling tunnels, came in response to the firing of a long-range Grad Katyusha rocket at Beersheba, Israel’s fourth largest city, which is 35km from Gaza.
Israeli aircraft also targeted three Islamic Jihad militants believed to have been responsible for the firing of the rocket, wounding two of them, according to Palestinian sources.
Hamas fighters were ordered to evacuate positions throughout the Gaza strip as Israeli air raids continued in the early hours yesterday.
The rocket which landed in Beersheba caused extensive damage to a home. The family had taken cover in a secure room after hearing the warning siren. Ten people were treated in hospital for shock. A second rocket landed close to the southern Israeli town of Netivot.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he would not advise anyone to test Israel’s resolve.
“We are determined to defend our citizens, and we will not tolerate the shelling of our cities and our civilians. No country would agree to this. Israel will act accordingly to defend its citizens.”
Defence minister Ehud Barak visited Beersheba yesterday and assured the residents that the city would not become part of the “cycle of Qassam rockets” that are continually fired into southern Israel.
According to the Israeli military, 58 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel this year.
This was the first time that Beersheba has been hit since the Gaza war in the winter of 2008-09.
Asked by residents if Israel was planning another military invasion of Gaza to stop the rocket fire Mr Barak responded “everything has its own time”.
Residents complained that the Iron Dome anti-missile defence system, developed together with the US, had not been deployed in the south to intercept incoming projectiles. They told him that if Israel did not act to defend Beersheba, then Tel Aviv will be the next target.
Israel holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire emerging from Gaza.