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Israeli soldiers kneel near the body of a Thai agricultural worker hit by a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza - Source: Reuters -
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Palestinian militants fired a rocket into Israel from the Gaza
Strip, killing a Thai agricultural worker, while the European
Union's foreign affairs chief was visiting the Hamas-controlled
enclave.
It was the first strike from the territory to cause any fatalities
since the end in January 2009 of Israel's Gaza war.
An hour before the attack, the EU's top diplomat, Briton Catherine
Ashton, crossed into the Gaza Strip to tour UN facilities and see
how the international funding was being used.
A previously unknown Gaza group, Ansar al-Sunna, claimed
responsibility for the attack, launched a day before the
international Quartet of Middle East peace mediators was to meet in
Moscow to discuss ways to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Similar strikes since the Gaza war have been met by Israeli air
raids against militants or suspected weapons-producing facilities,
but the death of the Thai worker, in Netiv Ha'asara, an
agricultural community, may harden Israel's response.
"This is a crossing of the red line, which Israel cannot accept.
The Israeli response will be appropriate. It will be strong," Vice
Prime Minister Silvan Shalom told reporters.
At a Gaza news conference after the attack, Ashton said: "I condemn
any kind of violence, we have got to find a peaceful solution to
the issues and problems."
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also expressed his condemnation,
saying in a statement: "All such acts of terror and violence
against civilians are totally unacceptable and contrary to
international law."
The incident could have more of an impact on internal Palestinian
politics than on the Middle East peace process, which Hamas has
refused to join and which is at an impasse over Israeli settlement
policy on land Palestinians want for a state.
Hamas Islamists, who seized the Gaza Strip in 2007, had been urging
other militant groups not to mount attacks on Israel, voicing
concern about retaliation.
Security challenge
But it has been faced with a mounting security challenge -
including bombings against Hamas officials and facilities - by Gaza
militant groups sharing the hard-line ideology of al Qaeda.
A known figure in the hard-line Salafist movement, whose agenda of
jihad, or holy war, against the West is contrary to Hamas's
nationalist goals, said Ansar al-Sunna was a newly established
group.
"The Jihadist mission came in response to the Zionist assaults
against the Ibrahimi and al-Aqsa mosques and the continued Zionist
aggression against our people in Jerusalem," Ansar al-Sunna said in
a statement.
It appeared to be referring to Israel's national heritage plan to
renovate holy sites, including the West Bank town of Hebron's Tomb
of the Patriarchs that is revered by Muslims and Jews, and the
rededication this week of an 18th-century synagogue in Jerusalem,
some 400 metres from al-Aqsa.
In a statement on the rocket firing, Hamas steered clear of
comments that could be seen by Palestinians in the
Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip as disapproving of a strike against
its enemy, even an attack that strained an informal truce.
"The government of the Zionist enemy, which has launched a war
against the Palestinian people and against holy sites and al-Aqsa
mosque, bears the responsibility for all the escalation," Hamas
spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.
Palestinian militants in Gaza have carried out sporadic rocket and
mortar bomb attacks on Israel since the end of the three-week Gaza
war, usually without causing any casualties.
More than 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, were
killed in the three-week offensive that was launched with the
declared aim of curbing rocket attacks.
Thirteen Israelis, among them three civilians, were killed.
