JERUSALEM - Three Qassam rockets fired from Gaza on Tuesday struck the Israeli border town of Sderot and its environs, causing no injuries but constituting the first serious breach of a five-day-old truce between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza.
Islamic Jihad rockets cause no damage but shatter truce
June 25, 2008 at 1:00AM
The crack in the calm came on the eve of a looming political crisis in Israel: Barring last-minute maneuvers and back-room deals, a preliminary reading of a bill for the dissolution of the Israeli parliament scheduled for today was expected to garner a majority of votes in the legislature, and threatened to prompt a breakup of the country's governing coalition.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said the rocket fire from Gaza had been "a grave violation of the calm" that went into effect Thursday, but he would not immediately comment on whether Israel would react.
Islamic Jihad, a small extremist group, claimed credit for the attack and said it had been a response to an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Nablus at dawn on Tuesday, in which a senior Islamic Jihad operative and another Palestinian man were killed.
Palestinian officials identified the two men killed as Tareq Abu Ghali, 24, and Iyad Khanfar, 21, a university student.
An Israeli army spokesman said that Abu Ghali had been involved in terrorism and that he was "killed in an exchange of fire." The man killed with him was armed, the spokesman said.
Under pressure from Hamas, Islamic Jihad had agreed to abide by the temporary truce, but had balked at the idea of not responding to Israeli strikes in the West Bank.
NEW YORK TIMES
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In interviews with the Star Tribune, Ryan described life before and after the Russian invasion in the country, where she’s worked to secure the border and help refugees flee war-torn areas.
