Gaza rockets put south Israeli town on edge

SDEROT, Israel - Summer vacation has come early to the southern Israeli town of Sderot, but few children are celebrating.

Parents have pulled their children from schools following a surge in Palestinian rocket attacks from the neighboring Gaza Strip since the ruling Islamic militant group Hamas scrapped a 16-month truce with the Jewish state.

Haim Cohen, 10, said he was too afraid to go back to his school after a home-made rocket seriously wounded a maintenance worker there yesterday.

"If we kids had been there we might have been killed," said Cohen, walking to a corner grocery in the rugged town, long a target for rockets.

Hamas declared the truce dead on the weekend after seven Palestinians, including three children, were killed on a Gaza beach on a day of Israeli shelling.

Israel has voiced regret at the killings and begun a military investigation, but has not admitted responsibility.

Sderot mayor Eli Moyal demanded tougher military action, even if it meant turning nearby areas of Gaza, from where militants fire rockets, into ghost towns.

"We should react roughly," Moyal told Reuters after talks with government officials who promised more money to build shelters. "Unless the Palestinians understand they will pay a heavy price, they will continue to blast us."

Speaking on Army Radio, Defence Minister Amir Peretz, a Sderot resident, did not rule out stronger action if the rocket firing continued. A rocket almost hit his home on May 31.

Moyal's tough words reflect growing frustration in Sderot and across Israel that a pullout of Jewish settlers and soldiers from Gaza last year did not bring a respite from rocket attacks.

Polls show this has eroded support for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan for a unilateral pullback in part of the occupied West Bank in the absence of peace talks.

Casualties in Israel from Palestinian rockets are far smaller than those from Israeli strikes in Gaza, but that is little solace to Sderot's 20,000 residents.

Moyal said more than 60 rockets had slammed into fields, backyards and buildings in the Sderot area in recent days, up from about 80 a month that had been fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from the coastal strip.

The thud of at least one explosion could be heard today.

"People are fleeing the city," said Sasson Sara, a grocer. "Some people take it very hard. They can't just laugh it off with a bottle of beer."

Many of those who would like to leave the working-class town say there are few buyers for their homes. Some accuse the government of abandoning them because it is a backwater.

Half a dozen residents have launched a hunger strike near Peretz's home in Sderot, saying they want the government to force the Palestinians to stop firing rockets or pay them the compensation given to Gaza settlers so they can leave.

"Give me the money so I can go and live some place safer," said Shlomo Suissa, 62.

"We're living in a war," added fellow protester Hava Gad, 41. "We are sitting ducks here. Yesterday a rocket landed right outside my home. Why can't the generals find a solution?"

- REUTERS