3 of the rockets land in Sderot as Peretz casts Labor primary vote in town.
By SHELLY PAZ, JPOST.COM STAFF, APhelicopter 298(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
A man was lightly wounded on Monday morning when three Kassam rockets landed in Sderot as Defense Minster Amir Peretz was casting his Labor primary vote in the western Negev town.
In total, Palestinian terrorists fired seven rockets from Gaza at the western Negev. Apart from the three that hit Sderot, the other four rockets landed in open areas in the western Negev.
On Sunday night, two Kassams were fired from Gaza at Sderot. No one was wounded but one person suffered from shock when the Kassam hit.
One of the rockets hit a Sderot home that had been damaged by a Kassam in the past. The residents of the house were in Jerusalem when the rocket struck.
Earlier, IAF planes bombed Hamas installations in the Gaza Strip town of Deir el-Balah.
On Sunday morning, a 35-year-old man was killed when a Kassam rocket slammed into the road near his car in Sderot, as rockets continued to rain down on the southern town.
The man - identified as Oshri Oz from Hod Hasharon - was hit in the neck by shrapnel when the missile landed, and the car crashed into a wall. He was evacuated to Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital in critical condition and died of his wounds shortly afterward.
According to Army Radio, Oz's wife found out about her husband's death on the Internet, where she saw the footage of the Kassam landing near his car.
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Oz was a father of two and his widow is in the advanced stages of pregnancy. A friend of Oz told Army Radio that he was an "amazing fellow, only good with no bad." The friend said that he and Oz were part of a closely-knit group of friends that had stayed together for over 25 years. "It's hard to speak of him in the past tense. He was always there for us," he said.
Oz will be laid to rest at 1 p.m. Monday in the Yarkon Cemetery.
One other person was treated for shock. Hamas took responsibility for the attack.
The attack brought the morning's rocket tally to four, with two other rockets landing in open areas and one in a residential neighborhood. No casualties were reported in the earlier attacks.
The attack also marked the second Israeli fatality since the surge in Kassam fire that began several weeks ago.
Meanwhile, Sderot students prepared to return to classes in different cities due to the rocket threat. The Education Ministry commissioned transports to take Sderot students to classrooms out of Kassam-range, in the area between Ashdod and Beersheba.
On Saturday night, Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal asked Education Minister Yuli Tamir to declare the current school year over for Sderot students and to begin the next school year on August 1, a month early.
Meanwhile, as the students headed out, some 1,000 residents of Sderot and the surrounding towns returned to the South after a rejuvenation period at IDF-organized vacation sites throughout the country.
On Saturday, over 10 Kassams were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip. One hit an apartment building and caused several people to go into shock. The building was seriously damaged.
Earlier Saturday, the IAF launched a series of airstrikes in Gaza in the army's ongoing campaign to stop Kassam rocket fire. Seven Palestinians were killed over the course of the day's attacks.
Sunday's rocket fire also followed three overnight IAF strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza. No one was injured in the airstrikes, but the ongoing violence signaled no slowdown in more than a week of fighting.
Israel has launched dozens of targeted missile strikes over the past 10 days that have killed 48 Palestinians and damaged many Hamas installations in an attempt to stop Hamas rocket fire from Gaza at Israeli border towns.
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