Jerusalem – A Palestinian rocket exploded Monday next to a day-care center crowded with toddlers in southern Israel, sparking anger and panic in the frequently targeted town of Sderot and bringing warnings of retribution from Israeli leaders.
No one was hurt, but the blast and the panic underlined Israel’s ineffectiveness in the face of the primitive rockets, which fall daily despite frequent Israeli airstrikes and occasional ground offensives.
Terrified mothers rushed to comfort their screaming babies, schoolchildren ran for cover, and angry parents said they wouldn’t send their children back to school until they get classrooms outside town.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to provide “better security for the residents,” indicating he would step up the Israeli offensive against Palestinian militants.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for launching seven rockets at Sderot. Hamas, the larger Islamic group that rules Gaza, was bracing for retaliation.
“We are taking this new threat by Olmert seriously,” Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu said. “We are warning of coming massacres against the people in Gaza.”
Hamas overran Gaza in June, vanquishing forces loyal to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah. Hamas has sent dozens of suicide bombers into the Jewish state and has made no effort to stop the rocket barrages, instead joining in with its own rocket squads.
Sderot, a working-class town of 22,000, has been battered by thousands of the crude projectiles launched in recent years from the Gaza Strip, just a mile away.
