The Israel Air Force launched three air strikes on buildings in the Gaza Strip early Saturday in the first air attacks since Israel completed its pullout from Gaza last week, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Palestinian hospital officials said three people were lightly injured in the IAF operation.
The air strikes came after Palestinians launched 26 Qassam rockets at targets in Israel, 21 of which landed in the western Negev town of Sderot, wounding five Israelis, one moderately and the others lightly, the army said. Six others were treated for shock.
Israeli Cabinet has approved the retaliation (haaretzdaily.com).
Update: According to CNews, the number of missiles fired into Israel is thirty-five:
Israel launched a "crushing" retaliation Saturday against the Palestinian Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip with deadly air strikes, troops massed at the border and a planned ground incursion after militants fired 35 rockets at Israeli towns - their first major attack since the Israeli Gaza pullout.
(...)
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told security chiefs in a meeting "the ground of Gaza should shake" and he wanted to exact a high price from Palestinians everywhere, not just Hamas. He promised a "crushing" response, including air strikes, targeted killings and arrests, participants said afterward.
For the Palestinians' part:
Palestinian Interior Ministry spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa called the plan a "serious escalation that will lead to a new era of violence."
Will it never end? Israel has bent over backwards, given up its rightfully-won-in-the-1967-war-territory, forcefully evicting its own Israeli citizens from their homes in a goodwill peace gesture towards Palestine. Yet Hamas doesn't care and obviously only wants war and to destroy Israel. When will the international community come to see what's really happening in the Middle East? How can so many not see that Hamas has always and still does want to destroy Israel simply because it's not an Islamic state as Hamas wants?
Now is the time to put an end to Hamas and all terrorist organizations. The truth cannot be denied.
Update Sept. 26, 2005:
See the latest on this story at Small Dead Animals.
