Rocket from Gaza Strip kills worker

Published on Thursday 18 March 2010 20:42

PALESTINIAN militants fired a rocket at Israel from the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing a farm worker. It is the first death from such an attack since last year's Gaza offensive.

• A Thai worker, one of thousands of migrant labourers in Israel, was killed in the attack launched from the Gaza Strip Picture: Getty Images

Magen David Adom, an Israeli emergency services official, said the victim was a Thai man in his thirties, who was working in an agricultural community just north of Gaza, one of the tens of thousands of foreign labourers in Israel.

The rocket hit a greenhouse. An Islamist faction calling itself Ansar al-Sunna later claimed responsibility.

Similar hardline groups, inspired by al-Qaeda, have been behind most of the attacks since the war ended in January 2009. They see Gaza's rulers, Hamas, as too moderate.

A second group, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, also claimed responsibility later.

The rocket was fired just as Europe's top diplomat, European Union foreign policy chief Lady Ashton, crossed into Gaza.

"I condemn any kind of violence. We have got to find a peaceful solution to the issues and problems," said Lady Ashton, who is the most senior international official to visit Gaza in more than a year.

The attack was also condemned by the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon.

"All such acts of terror and violence against civilians are totally unacceptable," he said.

In a statement, the Ansar al-Sunna faction said the attack was a response to Israel's "Judaisation" of Islamic holy places in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Israel's military said it was the third rocket fired from Gaza in a 12-hour period.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Israel of provoking the attack. He said: "The Zionist enemy holds responsibility for the results of the recent escalation against our people and our holy places."

Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, meanwhile, said Hamas was responsible for provoking the attack, and he threatened a tough response.

"Israel will not allow terrorism and Palestinian terrorists to continue their attacks and to kill Israelis," he said during a visit to the scene.

Israel later fired shells into an open area of Gaza, causing no injuries, according to Palestinian officials. The Israeli army did not comment.

Lady Ashton was touring Gaza to get a first-hand look at the hardships caused by the war and by a punishing Israeli-Egyptian border blockade that has been in place since Hamas's violent takeover of Gaza in 2007.

Thousands of homes were razed or damaged during Israel's offensive – in which 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed – but reconstruction is on hold because building supplies cannot reach Gaza.

The West also shuns Gaza's Islamic militant rulers as terrorists, while Hamas refuses to renounce violence and recognise Israel.