Kassam wounds 2 Sderot brothers

Almost 50 rockets hit western Negev; Islamic Jihad claims responsibility; Orlev demands invasion.

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Anger boiled over in Sderot on Saturday night as residents took to the streets, demanding that the government take stronger steps against the rocket fire from Gaza following a Kassam strike that shattered one local family's Shabbat. Two brothers from Sderot, aged eight and 19, were seriously wounded and two other members of their family were also hospitalized when a rocket fired from northern Gaza - one of almost four dozen launched this weekend - struck two meters from where the boys were standing. Eyewitnesses said the brothers were walking when the first rocket slammed into the ground two meters from eight-year-old Osher Twito and his 19-year-old brother, Rami. Some at the scene said that the Color Red warning siren sounded only after the first rocket had already struck. One man said that he and his friends ran to the attack site and saw the boys lying on the ground and bleeding, with Osher screaming: "Save me, save me!" Magen David Adom teams rushed Rami and Osher to Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital, where the 19-year-old's condition was upgraded to moderate while doctors operated to save the life of the younger boy, who suffered severe shrapnel wounds to both of his legs. The brothers' mother and 15-year-old brother were also hospitalized at Barzilai, where they were treated for shock. Five rockets were fired during the barrage; three - including the one that hit near the Twito family - struck the western Negev town. Islamic Jihad's military wing, the Quds Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack. Within minutes, angry residents began to take to the streets, burning tires and demanding that the government stop the rocket fire from Gaza. Smaller protests also erupted on Friday night, after a rocket struck the Peretz family's Sderot home as they sat together following their Shabbat dinner. The rocket crashed though the tile roof of the house and landed on the second floor, where it exploded. Four family members - the parents, their daughter, and the girl's grandmother, were all treated for shock at Barzilai. All in all, around a dozen Sderot residents were treated for shock over the weekend. A second house also suffered a direct hit. Earlier Saturday, the IAF attacked a Popular Resistance Committees cell in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun as its members were preparing, according to the IDF, to fire a rocket. Palestinian medics reported that two of the terrorists were wounded, one seriously. The IAF also destroyed four other rocket launchers in the area. Likud faction chairman Gideon Sa'ar called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to delay their trips abroad planned for this week. He said that Olmert and Barak must answer to the people of Sderot, and not to the people of Berlin or Ankara. Last night, police prevented hundreds of Sderot residents outside Ashkelon from traveling to Tel Aviv to protest outside Barak's home. National Religious Party Chairman Zevulun Orlev called for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip similar to Operation Defensive Shield, conducted against the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank in 2002. Gil Hoffman contributed to this report