Gaza conflict: Militant rocket targets Jerusalem

BBC News online - 16 November 2012

Israeli strikes 'cause fear and panic'

Hamas militants have launched a rocket on Jerusalem - the first time the holy city has been targeted in decades - and the first such attack from Gaza.

Militants said they wanted to hit the Israeli parliament, but the missile landed outside the city - and there were no casualties.

The upsurge follows Israel's killing of Hamas's military chief on Wednesday and its continued air strikes on Gaza.

Egypt's leader has vowed to back Gaza in the face of "blatant aggression".

Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovich told the BBC's Ben Brown, in Ashkelon: "We are here to defend our country"

Twenty Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed since Wednesday.

Militants and civilians, including at least five children, were among the Palestinian dead, Palestinian officials said.

Analysis

Jonathan Marcus BBC Diplomatic Correspondent

While considerable attention has focused on the long-range Palestinian rocket attacks against Tel Aviv - Israel's largest population centre - this latest strike against Jerusalem once again raises the question of "red lines".
If these attacks persist - and especially if they cause casualties - could this be the development that sparks an Israeli ground incursion into the Gaza Strip? Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are roughly similar distances from Gaza suggesting that it is Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles that are being fired at the two cities.
Israeli commanders had confidently asserted after the first day of air strikes that they had destroyed the bulk of these longer-range missiles. There does not seem to be a huge appetite at the political level in Israel for a ground operation. But the preparations are in place. With the civilian casualty toll in Gaza rising, a resolution to this crisis seems as far away as ever.

Hamas's military leader Ahmed Jabari was killed by an Israeli air strike on Wednesday.

Two Israeli women and a man died when a rocket fired from Gaza hit a building in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday, Israeli officials said.

Before the recent offensive, Israel had repeatedly carried out air strikes on Gaza, as Palestinian militants fired rockets across the border.

It is not clear if the rocket targeting Jerusalem was the same Iranian-built Fajr-5 launched towards Tel Aviv for the second day on Friday.

The rockets have an estimated range of 75km (45 miles).

Israel's Haaretz newspaper said the rocket landed in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem. It said it was the first time since 1970 that a rocket had been fired there.

Police were checking to see if a second rocket fell in the Jerusalem area.

Tel Aviv was earlier targeted for the second day, but a missile aimed at the city appears to have done no harm, with police officials quoted variously as saying it had landed in the sea or in an unpopulated area.

It is the first time Tel Aviv has come under attack since the 1991 Gulf War.

Analysts say it is the first time Gaza militants have deployed such powerful missiles.

An Israeli military spokesman said 550 missiles had been fired into Israel since Wednesday - 184 had been intercepted by its radar-protective system, Iron Dome.

The Israelis had hit more than 600 targets in Gaza, the spokesman said.

Israel says the assault is aimed at knocking out rocket-firing facilities.

The Israeli defence minister has approved the army's call for more than 30,000 reservists to be called up.

Rumours have been swirling that a ground attack is imminent, but Israeli officials have said no decision has yet been made.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has accused Israel of carrying out "massacres".

Western leaders have appealed for both sides to stop the escalation in violence.

Britain and Germany both said Hamas bears the brunt of the blame and should stop firing rockets immediately.

But Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi sent Prime Minister Hisham Qandil to the territory for a three-hour visit on Friday to show solidarity with the Palestinians.

"Egypt will not leave Gaza on its own, and what is happening is a blatant aggression against humanity," the president said shortly after Mr Qandil returned from Gaza.

Ties between Hamas and Egypt have strengthened since Mr Mursi's election earlier this year.
Hamas was formed as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Mr Mursi belongs.