Israeli strikes kill nine after rocket is fired
Palestinians linked the action to Bush's visit. No one was hurt by the rocket fire deep into Israel.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Israeli army stepped up a broad offensive in the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least nine Palestinians with air strikes and shelling attacks after attackers fired a Katyusha rocket that struck deep into Israel.
Palestinians accused Israel of poisoning the atmosphere ahead of President Bush's visit to the region next week.
In strikes across Gaza, Israeli aircraft and tanks hit buildings the Israelis said were used by extremists. In one clash, Israel shelled a house in the southern city of Khan Younis, killing one extremist along with his mother, sister and brother. Capt. Noa Meir, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said attackers were "intentionally using civilian areas" to fire at troops and blamed them for the deaths.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the army offensive, which followed the Katyusha rocket firing into Israel. Katyushas can hit targets up to 19 miles away, about twice the range of the thousands of homemade projectiles that Gaza extremists have fired at Israel in recent years.
The Katyusha fired yesterday exploded in Ashkelon, about 11 miles from Gaza - the longest reach yet of a Palestinian rocket. No one was hurt, but Israel considered it an escalation and its response reflected that.
"The Palestinians have attacked a major Israeli city ... and thus have upped the ante," government spokesman David Baker said. "Israel will not allow any cities to be attacked by Palestinian rocket fire."
Abu Rdeneh, Abbas' spokesman, said Palestinians "consider what's going on in Gaza . . . as a bloody Israeli message in which Israel shirks itself of any commitment before the arrival of President Bush."
In published comments yesterday, Bush said he would not let a future Palestinian state become a base for attacks on Israel. "I won't lend a hand to the establishment of a terror state on the borders of Israel," he told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. Bush is to arrive Wednesday.
Israel wants to limit the inflow of weapons to Gaza, contending that tons of arms and explosives, including Katyushas, have been smuggled through tunnels from Egypt, and that Egypt has not done enough to stop the flow.
Also yesterday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a surprise visit to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah II and update him on talks with the Palestinians before Bush's arrival. Israeli officials said Olmert told the king that Israel would not build any new settlements in the West Bank and said that unless the Palestinians cracked down on violence, no progress could be made.
Israel's Supreme Court, meanwhile, upheld reductions of fuel supplies from Israel to Gaza, rejecting assertions by rights groups that the cutbacks were causing a humanitarian crisis. The reductions are part of Israel's campaign against Gaza extremists and the Hamas government there.
