Gaza Rocket Attacks Dwindle

The body of Palestinian boy Tamer abu Shaar lays in the morgue of a hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on February 20, 2008. The 10-year-old boy was shot dead during an Israeli incursion into the central Gaza Strip, medics said. (AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images)

20 February, 2008

Jerusalem - A total of 1 150 rockets were fired at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip last year, 23% fewer than a year earlier, said an Israeli general on Tuesday.

So far this year, the figure has reached 400, the Home Front command chief, Brigadier General Yair Golan, told a parliamentary committee, according to army radio.

Golan told the MPs the number of Qassams that struck the area decreased from 1 488 in 2006 to 1 150 in 2007.

On Tuesday, Gaza militants fired several rockets against southern Israel, causing some damage to buildings, but no casualties, said the army.

Israeli troops also shot dead a Palestinian gunman in a fire fight in the northern Gaza Strip.

That brought to at least 187 the number of people killed, most of them Palestinians, since peace talks resumed in November, according to an AFP count.

Israel has kept Gaza under an effective lockdown since June, after the territory's takeover by the Islamist Hamas movement. Israeli authorities have since tightened the blockade, citing continuing rocket attacks.

As pressure has mounted for an all-out assault on Hamas-run Gaza, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said last week the armed forces would do whatever was necessary to stop the attacks.