- Title: MIDDLE EAST: Gaza militants claim they fired rocket on Israeli city of Ashkelon
- Date: 15th May 2008
- Summary: (BN15) GAZA CITY, GAZA (MAY 14, 2008) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) VARIOUS OF MASKED PALESTINIAN GUNMEN FROM AL-NASER SALAH EL-DEIN BRIGADES, WALKING ON GAZA STREET CLOSE OF GUNMEN READY FOR STREET PRESS CONFERENCE WIDE OF MILITANTS HOLDING STREET PRESS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) AL-NASER SALAH EL-DEIN BRIGADES ARMED WING OF HAMAS SAYING: "The rocket was a message to the
- Embargoed: 30th May 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Defence / Military
- Reuters ID: LVADX4OUU2E36C739V8MPG7HHNWH
- Story Text: A rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip wounded scores of people at a shopping mall in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Wednesday (May 14), the Israeli army and emergency service officials said.
The strike came as U.S. President George W. Bush met Israeli leaders in Jerusalem to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of their state -- an event Palestinians commemorate as the "Nakba", or catastrophe, for their people.
A clinic on the top floor of the Hutzot mall, close to Israel's main coastal highway, took the brunt of the blast.
The Al-Nasser Salah El-Dein Brigades an armed wing of Hamas said its fighters launched the rocket, one of an almost daily pattern of militant attacks from the Palestinian enclave.
"The rocket was a message to the Zionist enemy. If he does not take the decisive decision, and if he does not comply to the Palestinian resistance conditions within the conditions that the parties have announced, then the Al-Nasser Salah El-dein brigades in God's willing will be on top of these parties that will hit the Zionist enemy with various operations, and the developed long range missiles," a masked spokesman from the militant group said.
Ashkelon, which is more than 10 km (six miles) north of the coastal enclave, has generally been out of range but some more powerful rockets, notably Soviet-designed Katyushas or Grads, have struck the city of some 120,000 this year.
Rockets fired from Gaza have killed two Israeli civilians in the past week in agricultural communities closer to the border -- the first such deaths in over two months. In all, such rocket attacks have killed five Israelis in the past year.
The Israeli army regularly attacks Gaza, from which it withdrew occupying troops in 2005. Such raids have killed some 300 people in Gaza this year, more than 100 of them civilians.
After Wednesday's attack, medics said 31 people were treated in hospital. Three of these, including a 6-year-old girl, were Seriously hurt.
The White House condemned the attack and said political goals would "never be achieved by launching rockets from Gaza at innocent women and children."
A United Nations spokesman the attack was "totally unacceptable and that it highlighted "the unsustainability of the current situation for the people of southern Israel, as well as the people of Gaza." - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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