MIDDLE EAST: Israelis and Palestinians around Gaza border awake to scenes of destruction

After a week of Palestinian rocket attacks on the Israeli town of Sderot which killed a woman and wounded dozens of people, residents demanded on Tuesday (May 22) that the Israeli government toughen its action against militants in Gaza. The woman's death marked the first fatality in a Palestinian rocket attack since November and stoked further Israeli anger. The killing prompted residents to demand that the Israeli army acts more firmly against Palestinian militants in Gaza. "I can't believe up to this day that these are the images we have to suffer. It is unbearable. This is negligence, it is unbearable situation that the government is not doing anything to change it. We are being killed, and slaughtered and we feel like ducks in a shooting gallery," said Andrei, a resident of Sderot. "I think we need to enter Gaza and dismantle everything, to create a zone and that's it. We did not come here to die," said another resident, Lidya. Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Efraim Sneh visited Sderot on Tuesday and was asked if Israel would target senior political figures of the Islamist militant movement Hamas and replied that Israel does not differentiate between political and military leaders of Hamas. "I don't know who are the political members of Hamas. I don't see any distinction between the two. Those who incite for terror, those who inspire others to take terrorist actions they are guilty the same as the others who hold the Kalachnikov," Sneh told Reuters Television. Israel's security cabinet decided on Sunday to escalate military action in response to around 150 rockets fired from Gaza since last week. Palestinians fear Israel may soon raid Gaza should the violence continue. Several vehicles and artillery batteries have been stationed near the northern border for days. The latest Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip before dawn on Tuesday destroyed a metal foundry and a wood workshop near which Hamas militants had gathered, Palestinian witnesses and a Hamas spokesman said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The military said it targeted a foundry Hamas had used to make weapons and a building used as a "command centre" by the Popular Resistance Committees militant group. Both groups, as well as Islamic Jihad, all claimed responsibility for the attack on Sderot.

ITN Source | May 22, 2007

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