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Israel trades fire with Gaza, tests ballistic missile

Militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza bombarded southern Israel with rockets yesterday and Israel pounded back with air and ground fire, declaring it would not back off until the assaults on Israeli border communities have halted.

No serious injuries were reported on either side as the violence pushed peace efforts to the sidelines. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas' rival and Israel's partner in newly resumed peace talks, denounced what he called the Israeli "massacre" in Gaza.

Twenty-three Palestinians were killed in fierce clashes in the seaside territory on Tuesday and Wednesday, including the militant son of Gaza's Hamas strongman, Mahmoud Zahar, and a 12-year-old boy who died along with his father and uncle in a bungled Israeli airstrike. A foreign volunteer on an Israeli border farm was killed by a Hamas sniper.

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rejects Israel's right to exist, has intensified its direct involvement in the assaults on Israel as a result of the escalating violence. The group, which had let other militant factions take the lead in attacking Israel since it wrested control of Gaza in June, claimed it fired 24 rockets early yesterday, after launching 79 rockets and mortars on Wednesday.

Other groups said they fired an additional four rockets and eight mortar rounds.

Israeli police said 18 rockets and mortars had landed in Israel by midday. One rocket slammed into the side of a house, slightly injuring two people, police said.

Israeli struck back at northern Gaza from the air and ground, targeting rocket squads and areas militants frequently use to fire projectiles. No injuries were reported, Hamas security said.

Earlier in the week, however, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert suggested that Israel would not embark upon a broad military operation in Gaza. Past large-scale strikes have caused heavy Palestinian casualties without halting the rocket fire.

Militants have launched some 4,000 of the crude rockets and mortar rounds at southern Israel since Israel evacuated Gaza in the summer of 2005 after a 38-year occupation. The rockets have killed 12 people since 2001 and sown panic in border areas, where people are frequently forced to rush to take cover when sirens alert them to incoming projectiles.

Militants have been extending their reach as well, with one Iranian-made rocket recently traveling some 16km inside Israel's borders.

BALLISTIC MISSILE

Meanwhile, Israel successfully test-fired a ballistic missile yesterday, army radio said, two days after warning that all options were on the table to prevent Iran from obtaining atomic weapons.

"There was an important test, which was carried out successfully, of a ballistic missile," the radio said, without providing any further details.

The test was "part of a future multi-layered defense system designed to counter various aerial threats against the Jewish state," the YNet Web site said.

Israel has in recent years concentrated efforts on countering the threat of missile attacks from neighboring Arab states and Iran, which has itself conducted several long-range missile tests.
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