(Los Angeles Times) Two or three Palestinian men, usually masked, arrive by truck in some quiet corner of Beit Hanoun in Gaza and set up a launcher no larger than a camera tripod. Within moments, a resounding boom echoes as another Kassam rocket - an unguided, 5-foot-long homemade projectile that is little more than a flying pipe bomb - is airborne. The men are gone before the smoke has time to dissipate. Palestinian militants had launched more than 320 of the rockets without causing serious damage, but on June 28, one of the rockets landed in front of a nursery school in the Israeli desert town of Sderot, killing a 3-year-old and a bystander.
2004-07-15 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive