Hamas intensifies rocket war

JERUSALEM – Intensifying its rocket war against Israel, the Hamas terror group today fired long-range rockets farther than usual into the Jewish state, targeting a city that houses the main electrical supply station that powers the Gaza Strip.

"This is a war for victory or for martyrdom. We will keep improving our rockets and target further into the Zionist entity," Muhammad Abdel-Al, spokesman for the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees terror group, told WND.

At least 10 Grad rockets slammed into the coastal city of Ashkelon, about six miles from the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip. Several people were reported wounded from the attack, although the exact number was unclear. One of the rockets scored a direct hit on a home.

Grad rockets are longer-range Soviet-style projectiles similar to the Katyusha rocket, which the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group successfully used in 2006 to barrage northern Israel. The Grad travels further and has a larger payload than the Qassam rocket, which can travel about five miles and is the usual rocket of choice for Palestinians.

At least 60 more rockets, mostly Qassams, targeted Sderot today, bombarding the working-class city of about 25,000 people located nearly three miles from the Gaza border.

The rockets crashed as hundreds of Sderot residents attended a funeral for Roni Yechiah, a 47-year-old man killed by Hamas' Qassam strikes yesterday. Yechiah was struck when a rocket landed at a college in Sderot.

Earlier today, Israel's Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, on tour of ravaged Sderot, was caught in a rocket barrage that struck the same college where Yechiah was killed. One of Dichter's bodyguards was lightly wounded by shrapnel.

Sources in Hamas told WND the group would attempt to continue firing Grad rockets at Ashkelon and will then move on to firing deeper inside Israel. The sources hinted they would next target Ashdod, one of Israel's most important port cities.

Israel stepped up surgical air-strikes against Hamas today, targeting missile crews and Hamas installations amid calls from the Israeli defense echelon to launch a massive ground operation in Gaza.

In an apparent statement Hamas leaders are not immune from Israeli attack, the Israel Air Force attacked a police roadblock just outside the Gaza City home of former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who was not home at the time. According to security officials, Haniyeh has been in hiding for several weeks, fearing assassination.

But Israeli government decision makers today did not express any coherent policy to address the increasing rocket attacks.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters the Jewish state is "in a war which sometimes exacts a high cost and sometimes does not."

He said Israel would not change its current policy of surgical air-strikes in Gaza.

"What is happening today happened a week ago and is likely to happen in the near future," said Olmert.

At the same time, Israel's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, hinted at approving a large-scale ground operation, calling a ground onslaught "real and tangible."

"We are not eager [to launch a ground invasion] and not shying away from it. There is a wide range of considerations regarding the timing, which we can't share with the public or with Hamas. We will get there after we examine all the other possibilities," he said.

For his part, Dichter said the current Israeli policy to counter rocket attacks from Gaza is failing.

"I recognize everything the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet are doing, but right now they are operating according to an existing policy," he said.

"This is not what is going to stop the Qassam fire and this must be brought to the cabinet for discussion."

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