Blast Rocks Gaza During Protest

A 3-year old Palestinian boy was killed and nine Palestinians were wounded late Tuesday in the northern Gaza Strip when rockets launched by militants misfired and landed in Palestinian areas, rescue workers said.

Witnesses said militants fired three rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot where thousands of Israeli opponents of the planned Israeli withdrawal from Gaza had gathered in a demonstration. Two of the rockets fell in Palestinian areas and the third fell in an open field near Sderot.

Among the wounded were five children, aged 4 to 11, including four children of Hisham Abdel Razek, a senior official in the ruling Fatah party and a former Palestinian Cabinet minister. Abdel Razek's wife was also wounded.

The dead boy was identified as Yasser Adnan Ashkar. His 11-year-old brother Ali, was in critical condition, hospital officials said.

Meanwhile, settler leaders said they planned to defy a military order and lead their followers on a march to Gaza's settlements. CBS News reports that by mid-afternoon, 1,000 protesters had arrived at a temporary camp outside Sderot.

More than 15,000 police and soldiers took up positions in southern Israel to prevent the marchers from reaching Gaza, which has been declared a closed military zone, and sabotaging the pullout scheduled to begin in two weeks.

The march, which is scheduled to begin Wednesday, is the settlers' second effort in two weeks to breech the barricades preventing them from getting into the Gush Katif settlement bloc in southern Gaza. If they fall short again, it would be a devastating blow to the protest movement.

"Our goal has been stated openly: to go Gush Katif, to our besieged brothers," Gaza settler leader Avner Shimoni told Channel 2 TV. "It is impossible to stop the masses of Israel who have only one goal, to reach Gush Katif and overturn this cruel decree."

After days of negotiating with the authorities, settler leaders were given permission to hold their rally Tuesday in Sderot, an Israeli town that borders northern Gaza and has been the frequent target of rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.

One of the stray rockets fell on the Ashkar house in the Beit Hanoun area north east of Gaza City. Abdel Razek's family was visiting at the time, witnesses said. The house was severely damaged.

Minutes before the rockets was fired, Palestinian militants shot an anti-tank rocket at an Israeli convoy traveling to the isolated Israeli settlement of Netzarim Tuesday, settlers and the army said. There were no reports of injuries.

Palestinian residents nearby said the explosion, just south of Gaza City, was followed by gunfire. The army said it was carrying out searches in the area.

The violent Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack on the convoy.

Militant attacks against Israelis had dropped off after a February truce between Israel and the Palestinians. In recent weeks, however, as the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza approaches, militants have stepped up attacks to try to portray the Israeli pullout as a military victory for the Palestinians.

Following the rally, the protesters planned to spend the night in Ofakim — an Israeli town about 20 miles from Gaza. Police officials said they reached an agreement with settler leaders that would allow the protesters to stay in Ofakim until Friday, but some settler leaders said they would begin marching Wednesday to Gush Katif.

Authorities said 15,000 police and soldiers would form human chains and erect roadblocks throughout the area to stop the march. By the evening, groups of soldiers gathered outside Sderot to prevent anyone from trying to march to Gaza from here.

Thousands of protesters wearing shirts and ribbons the orange color of the protest movement — many of them teenagers and parents with small children — descended on an open field next to a sports center in the middle of Sderot and posters lashing the pullout were plastered across the town. Buses and cars caused traffic jams as they descended on Sderot.

Over the stage hung a sign that said "Mass march to Gush Katif." It was the same sign over the stage at a rally two weeks ago in the nearby town of Netivot. Police and soldiers prevented those protesters from getting anywhere near Gaza, herding them into the small community of Kfar Maimon, where they stayed for three days in the blistering heat before dispersing.

Some of the protesters in Sderot said there was really no chance for them to stop the pullout.

"It seems that it is too late," said Alain Bismuth, 40, from the northern town of Haifa. He said he came simply to show that there are many Israelis opposed to the plan.

Others still had hope.

"Everything we do changes things," said Shmuel Lax, 30, of Neve Tsuf.

"We are going to be strong and God will help us and hear our prayers and our demonstrations," hardline lawmaker Benny Elon said.

Police had originally said they would limit the crowd to 5,000, but later estimated 10,000 people were at the rally, roughly half the number at the Netivot rally.

Israel plans to pull out of all 21 Gaza Strip settlements and four in the West Bank in mid-August, uprooting about 9,000 settlers. The government says more than half of the settlers have agreed to leave voluntarily and expect more to follow before the withdrawal date.

But some settler leaders and their supporters plan fierce resistance.

More than 200,000 settlers live in other parts of the West Bank, and their leaders fear the Gaza pullout could be the beginning of further withdrawals from land claimed by the Palestinians. Observant Jews believe the West Bank is promised to the Jews in the Bible.

On Sunday, the Cabinet will formally vote on the evacuation of the first group of settlements, a government official said. In March, the Cabinet approved the overall withdrawal plan, but agreed to vote again separately before the evacuation of each of four groups of settlements. The pullout is expected pass easily.

Despite the settler protests, Israeli military commanders will meet their Palestinian counterparts on Wednesday to continue efforts to coordinate the withdrawal, the Palestinian Interior Ministry said.