The two fatalities in the Qassam rocket attack: Afik Zahavi (top) and Mordechai Yosepov. (Reproduction)
Posted on 06/28/2004 2:19:07 PM PDT by Cinnamon Girl
The two fatalities in the Qassam rocket attack: Afik Zahavi (top) and Mordechai Yosepov. (Reproduction)
The father of 4-year-old Afik Zahavi attending his son's funeral in Sderot on Monday. (Pierre Terdjman)
Israel Defense Forces troops destroyed two eight-story building in the Khan Yunis refugee camp Monday night, in the wake of two attacks in which three Israelis were killed.
On Monday morning, two people, one of them a young child, were killed and at least nine others were wounded, when four Qassam rockets landed on the southern town of Sderot.
The rocket attack came the day after Israel Defense Forces Staff Sergeant Roi Nissim was killed and five troops were wounded when militants detonated 150 kilograms of explosives placed in a tunnel they had dug underneath an IDF post in the central Gaza settlement bloc of Gush Katif.
The decision to destroy the buildings was taken in a meeting between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and security chiefs to discuss an Israeli response to the two attacks.
Hours later, IDF troops blew up the two empty eight-story buildings, located close to Gush Katif. The two buildings were destroyed after troops found a ventilation shaft between them, which military sources said was apparently connected to the explosives-laden tunnel.
Several IDF tanks also rolled into northern Gaza late Monday and more armored vehicles assembled at the Gaza border, along with dozens of troops - a precursor to what Israeli security officials said could be a prolonged operation in Gaza to prevent rocket fire on Israeli towns bordering the Strip.
Nine people were also wounded in the Qassam strike on the southern town of Sderot, the first fatal attack of its kind.
The two fatilities were identified as Mordechai Yosepov, 49, and four-year-old Afik Zahavi, whose mother, Ruthie, was critically wounded in the attack.
Both were laid to rest Monday afternoon at the Sderot cemetery.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the rockets, which were fired from the Gaza Strip. In the wake of the attack, the police bolstered the number of officers in the Negev town.
Since the start of the intifada in September 2000, 347 Qassam rockets have been fired at Israeli targets, of which 265 have landed within the Green Line.
Present at Sharon's two-hour discussion were Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon and the heads of Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security services, Israel Radio said.
Following the attacks, Mofaz cancelled a trip to Italy later in the week.
The wounded were rushed from Sderot to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, where surgeons battled in vain to save the life of the four-year-old boy.
"There was a huge boom. I was very frightened and ran away," said 18-year-old Chen Smadja, who was on her way to a nearby high school.
"Who is watching over [our children]? Nobody. That's my message to the prime minister," said Yitzhak Ohayon, father of Afik.
"We were supposed to go to his end-of-year party in kindergarten tomorrow... and now instead we'll be going to his funeral."
One of the rockets landed close to a kindergarten in the Neveh Eshkol neighborhood and the second hit a nearby coffeeshop, killing the two. The rockets landed just a kilometer from Sharon's private ranch.
A short time later, a third and rocket landed in an open field. There were no injuries from the third rocket.
Sderot has regularly been targeted by Palestinian militants. In the vast majority of cases, the crude home-made missiles land in open land, and this is the first time a Qassam has led directly to an Israeli fatality.
"So far Sderot had been lucky in the Qassam attacks," Minister Gideon Ezra told Israel Radio, "but that luck ran out today."
David Baker, an official at the Prime Minister's Office, told Haaretz that, "the Palestinian missile attack was an especially cruel reminder of the brutal nature of Palestinian terrorism. Once again, terror has struck at innocent Israelis in the heart of an Israeli town."
The United Nations envoy for the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, condemned the rocket attack.
Leader of the opposition, Labor Party Chairman Shimon Peres, said at a meeting with President Moshe Katsav on Monday that, "Unjustified terror presents a huge problem for the Palestinians. We have reached a decision to pull out of Gaza, and we must carry it out, not delay it."
Peres said that delaying the Gaza pullout due to terrorist attacks would benefit neither the Palestinians nor Israelis.
He also said the Palestinians must think long an hard about their actions in Sderot. "Nothing can justify hurting a child or his grandfather or soldiers who are merely following orders," he said.
The Likud had not offered to enter the Labor Party into a unity government, said Peres, he commented that the government is having a hard time making a decision for no apparent reason but that the Labor party would support the Gaza pullout whether they are in the government or not.
Please pray for my friend's husband who was brutally stabbed several times in Jerusalem and is fighting for his life: Chaim Moshe Azriel Ichal ben Chaya.
See above, please.
Praying.
Why stop at just three? Hell, I'd push Israeli border out 1km for every victim until the Palis were all clinging to wreckage in the ocean.
by "three" I was referring to the buildings leveled by the IDF, sadly I see there were only two.
WTF is an EIGHT STORY HIGH RISE APARTMENT BUILDING doing in a "refugee camp"?
Here are some more "squalid tents" inhabited by the poor impoverished refugees:
Oh yeah and don't forget all those Palestinian swimming pools and water parks which they somehow manage to enjoy even while crying that the eeeeevil settlers are siphoning all their water away:
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel ping list.
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Please see post 1.
May G-d sustain his life and grant him a full healing. May the evil that the enemy intended be brought to naught.
Both were laid to rest Monday afternoon at the Sderot cemetery.
We never see such mention of the Israeli dead being put to rest. It's as if once an Israeli is dead they disappear. Bias in the media? You bet there is.
Time for a Machiaveli strategy.
Yes bruda', we have high value real estate just south of Nablus. Once you get over the nightly "work accidents" and occasional Hellfire missile exploding above your apartment, it's all cherry boss!
Seriously, if Ramallah is the "cultural capital" of Palestinian heritage, does that make Gerittsen Beach the "center of nightlife" in New York City?
ACCCHHHH! Just send these cretins to Tunisia already!
I level a school, while the Pali kids are being given their daily ration of Hate. Or level a mosque during worship hour. Or start demolishing the Dome of the Rock.
Believe me, if there are people venal and unscrupulous enough to offer tours of North Korea, I am sure that there are a few tools who could be easily parted from their pocketbooks to take a tour of Arafat's stinking Muqata.
Yeah, it's kind of funny how many satellite dishes there are in the so-called pali refugee neighborhoods.
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Agreeing in prayer with you Salem for your friend. I am sending to my prayer warrior list right now!
Is it ratings? A dignified funeral isn't nearly as exciting as a cast of thousands chanting and brandishing the internal organs of the deceased.
Thanks for the ping.
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