21 Qassams hit the Negev on Saturday, lightly hurting five
By Avi Issacharoff, Mijal Grinberg and Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondents
Last update - 22:16 10/05/2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/982041.html

At least 21 Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip struck the western
Negev on Saturday, lightly hurting five people.

Several rockets damaged buildings in Israeli towns, including a home that
was hit while family members were inside. None of them were injured. Another
rocket fired from Gaza shattered the windows of a Sderot synagogue.

One rocket caused damage to a building near Sapir College, another landed
near a Sderot yeshiva, and a third hit a water pipe in a nearby farm. The
other rockets landed in open areas, with one setting a Sderot field ablaze.

Earlier, Hamas and Gaza health officials said five of the group's members
were killed and four others were wounded in two seperate Israel Air Force
strikes on police stations in southern Gaza late Friday.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said the strikes were in response to a
mortar attack Friday by Hamas militants that killed Jimmy Kdoshim, a
48-year-old Israeli civilian, as he was tending the garden of his home on
Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

A Magen David Adom rescue crew which was summoned to the scene pronounced
Kdoshim dead following unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate him.

Alon Schuster, the head of the Sha'ar Hanegev regional council said on
Saturday that the government needed to choose between outright war or
diplomacy to stop the Qassams. "The events of the last several days, which
peaked with the tragic death of a member of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, place a
unequivocal objective before the government: wiping out the offensive on the
Gaza border towns, whether by war or by discussions."

Also on Saturday, in the northern West Bank town of Jaba, Palestinian youths
hurled rocks and firebombs at IDF jeeps. Residents said soldiers responded
by firing live rounds and rubber-coated steel pellets, wounding nine
Palestinians.

Hamas said the attack on the Gaza town of Rafah targeted a Hamas police
station, killing two of its members and wounding four. The other IAF strike
killed three Hamas men in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis. Hamas said the
casualties were all members of the group's police force.

The IDF spokesperson also confirmed an additional strike early Saturday
morning, in which the IAF attacked a group of gunmen near the security fence
in the southern Gaza Strip. They confirmed the group was hit, but there was
no word yet on casualties.

The radio of Gaza's ruling Hamas movement said the group was responsible for
Friday's mortar fire.

"Hamas is clearly in control of the Gaza Strip and responsible for all
hostile fire into Israel. We hold it accountable for today's attack and the
murder of our civilians," David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman, said
Friday.

Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, said militants had
targeted a military position.

Asked if the deadly attack wouldn't make it more difficult to conclude a
truce, he replied, "We will continue to fire until the last moment before a
truce is completed."

In related news, the mayor of a southern Gaza village said IDF troops had
fired flares at farmlands, setting ablaze several acres of wheat and
cucmbers.

The IDF said it would look into the report from the village of Khouza.
Militants frequently use the area to fire rockets and mortars at southern
Israel.