Israel-Gaza Latest: Attacks Continue Across Border, Egypt Withdraws Ambassador (Haaretz/Ma'an/Al Jazeera English)
Saturday, August 20, 2011 at 7:51
Wounded Gazan Woman Carried into HospitalUPDATE 1850 GMT: A Grad rocket directly struck a home in the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva on Saturday night, killing one person and seriously wounding three.
A second rocket was intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defence system.
Israel's Channel 2 is reporting that Hamas has taken responsibility for the two rockets. Earlier today, the armed wing of the Gazan organisation said that it had fired four Grad rockets at the Israeli town of Ofakim, where officials reported two children had been lightly wounded. A statement from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said, "This is our response to the crimes of the Zionist occupation after the deaths of 15 of our martyrs and dozens of injured [in Gaza]."
--- Three reports covering different aspects of the developments over clashes along the Israeli borders with Gaza and with Egypt:
Less than a day after coordinated terror attacks killed eight Israelis, Palestinian attacks on Israel continue as 30 Grad and Qassam rockets were fired throughout southern Israel on Friday.
Most of the rockets fell in open areas and did not cause damage or injuries, but one of the missiles hit a building in an Ashdod industrial park, wounding six people, one of them seriously.
The Israel Defense Forces deployed the Iron Dome missile defense system on Friday evening to successfully intercept rockets bound for the port city of Ashdod and Ashkelon.
Three Qassam rockets were shot at the western Negev communities overnight. Emergency sirens were sounded, but no injuries or damage were reported.
Large contingents of police forces arrived at the scene of the rocket attacks and are on alert for additional missiles. Residents are called to remain in close proximity to bomb shelters.
The Palestinian rocket fire followed an Israel Air Force strikeon several targets in the Gaza Strip on Friday.
The IDF spokesman's office said in a statement that Israeli planes targeted weapon manufacturing centers in central Gaza Strip and two more sites in the north and south. "The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers," the statement read," and will continue to operate resolutely against anyone who terrorizes Israel. The Hamas terrorist organization is the address, and it bears the responsibility."
Israeli warplanes killed three Palestinians in an airstrike in central Gaza City late Friday, medics said, raising the death toll to 14 in the coastal enclave since a deadly attack in southern Israel on Thursday.
The latest strike hit a civilian car killing three people from the same family including a 5-year-old boy and a doctor, Gaza medical official Adham Abu Salmiya said, adding that three others were wounded.
Israel has carried out more than a dozen airstrikes across the Gaza Strip following a series of deadly shooting attacks in the Negev desert left eight Israelis dead on Thursday.
Fourteen Palestinians have now been killed and scores injured after Israeli officials blamed Gaza-based militant group the Popular Resistance Committees, although the faction has denied any involvement.
On Friday evening, Hamas' armed wing the Al-Qassam Brigades called off a ceasefire with Israel and urged factions in Gaza to respond to Israeli attacks, Al-Aqsa Radio reported.
"There can be no truce with the Israeli occupation while it commits massacres against the Palestinian people without justification," a representative of the militant group was quoted as saying.
On Friday evening two Palestinians were killed in air raids near the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, a medical official said.
The Egyptian government has withdrawn its ambassador to Israel in protest over a cross-border shooting incident on Thursday that left five Egyptian security personnel dead.
The cabinet has also summoned the Israeli ambassador in Cairo to provide answers on how an Israeli helicopter apparently accidentally killed the Egyptian border police while chasing armed men whom Israel suspected of being connected to an attack near the port city of Eilat earlier that day.
The increased diplomatic pressure on Egypt's neighbour came early on Saturday morning after Prime Minister Essam Sharaf led the cabinet in a special meeting, and hundreds of protesters lay siege to the Israeli embassy in Cairo.
Demonstrators arrived at the embassy in southwest Cairo on Friday afternoon and stayed into Saturday morning.
Protesters burned the Israeli flag, demanded that Israel's ambassador be expelled and that the Egyptian military do more to protect its border in the Sinai Peninsula.
Protesters tore down metal barriers surrounding the embassy and stomped on them, Al Jazeera correspondent Rawya Rageh reported from the scene.
"People are still gathered outside the embassy and they are making quite a lot of noise," she said.
"The protesters are insisting on making their voices heard and one of the protesters told me that they have no intention of leaving until the Israeli flag, perched on top of the 20th floor of the apartment building is brought down.
"Whether the deaths occurred as a result of direct gun fire or air raids still remains unclear and this is one the main contentious issues and one of the main reasons for the anger we were sensing outside the Israeli embassy … there is a lack of transparency regarding what exactly happened.
"We have not seen the army trying to forcefully remove protesters from the embassy, an indication perhaps that the military this time is really realising how strong the sentiment is on the street and how big the issue is for Egyptians, and that it has to thread carefully this time around."
Earlier in the day, state media reported that Egypt had lodged an official protest to Israel demanding an investigation into the killings of the security officials during an Israeli military operation near the border.
"Egypt filed an official complaint with Israel following yesterday's deaths at the border between Israel and Egypt," the official MENA news agency reported on Friday, citing an unnamed military official.
"Egypt has demanded an urgent probe into the circumstances of the deaths and injuries of Egyptian forces' members inside our borders."
The killings have sparked anger among the Egyptian public, especially after Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, said Thursday's attacks in southern Israel reflect "the weakening of Egypt's hold in the Sinai and the broadening of activities by terror elements".
Khaled Fouda, the Sinai governor, refuted Barak's statements saying that Egypt has "increased security patrolling and checkpoints in Sinai".
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