Israeli military analysts say that as Ashkelon becomes a permanent target of Hamas missile attacks, an Israeli ground offensive is becoming inevitable and likely to occur sooner rather than later.
After a dense barrage of rockets Thursday, fired by Hamas militants against Sderot, and the recent killing of a man at Sapir College, the Israel Defense Forces intensified its air attacks against Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip. Hamas sources claimed to have fired 82 rockets since Wednesday, 51 of them at Sderot.
Early Thursday evening, a Katyusha-type rocket struck a building in Ashkelon, crashing through the roof of an apartment building and slicing through three floors. No casualties were reported.
A senior Israeli security official said that the rockets fired into Ashkelon have been Iranian-made imports, with a range of about 22 kilometers, but some locally made rockets have fallen on the southern outskirts of the city.
The missiles, known as Grads, are taken apart, smuggled into Gaza through tunnels, and reassembled. But Hamas has only a limited supply, the source said.
Earlier in the day the IDF air offensive was intense, targeting Hamas positions, Palestinian government buildings, and rocket-launching crews.
In one attack, five boys were killed near the town of Jabalya as they played soccer. An IDF spokesperson said the aircraft targeted militants who were in the process of firing rockets at Israel.
"We are at the height of the battle," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in Tokyo, where he met U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is scheduled to visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority next week.
Rice said that "the issue is that the attacks (rocket attacks) need to stop."
Olmert appeared to suggest that a major Israeli ground operation against militants in the Gaza Strip was not imminent, saying Israel's fight against them was a "long process" and it had "no magic formula" to halt frequent rocket attacks.
Olmert's statements appeared to be echoed by Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, who visited Sderot Thursday.
Dichter rejected proposals to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, calling them "populist ideas which I don't agree with, and in my opinion, no intelligent person does either."
However, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman later said the violence "may leave us no choice" but to send troops back in, two and a half years after Israel ended its occupation of Gaza.
Defense Minister Barak told his security chiefs during a meeting Thursday that an offensive is a definite option. "The major ground operation is real and tangible. We are not afraid of it," Barak said, according to sources taking part in the meeting.
Barak also told Rice and other Foreign Ministers of the Quartet in phone conversations that Israel would step up its response to the rocket fire, but a ground offensive wasn't imminent.
The latest spike in violence began Wednesday, when five Iranian-trained Hamas militants, including two rocket masterminds, were killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza. In retaliation, Hamas fired dozens of Qassam rockets as well as longer-range Iranian-made Grad rockets.
Nabil Abu Rudainah, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement that Israel's military actions "meant only one thing: the Israeli government ... aims to destroy the peace process".
Olmert acknowledged the threat that "the continuous shooting of Qassam rockets against uninvolved, innocent civilians" pose a threat to stability, but vowed to hold his regular meetings with Abbas.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, speaking in East Jerusalem, said: "These stupid missiles being launched - firecrackers, but at the end they have killed Israeli civilians - we condemn this, clearly, openly, straightforwardly.
"But at the same time, we condemn all the Israeli incursions into Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians, destroying their houses, preventing them from having a normal life," he said.
Hamas officials struck a defiant tone Thursday. "We will never have equipment comparable to our enemy, but we are working all the time to have enough to make any aggression a regrettable adventure for the enemy," said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing, Izz al-Din al-Qassam.
In Tokyo, visiting Olmert said that Israel will go after the militants. We will reach out for the terrorists and we will attack and we will try to stop them, he said.
Rice, who briefly met with Olmert in Tokyo, said Hamas rocket attacks need to stop, but also expressed concern for the humanitarian situation in Gaza and urged calm on all sides.
Israel's public security minister, Avi Dichter, visited Sderot on Thursday, but was forced to cut short a news conference when an air-raid siren went off and his guards rushed him to a concrete shelter. Before Dichter arrived in the town, two people were hurt by rocket fire, including one of his bodyguards.
Dichter told reporters he had no quick solution for the rocket problem, but rejected suggestions of opening a dialogue with Hamas. Israel considers Hamas a terrorist group.
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