(16 Jan 2008)
++NIGHT SHOTS++
1. Wide of police car in street next to bus boarding children
2. People running to shelter as siren goes off
3. Children crowded inside concrete shelter
4. Mid of scared children in shelter, pan to wide of street; UPSOUND siren
5. Zoom in on bike left behind by child as he was running to shelter
6. Various of people running into shelters; UPSOUND siren
7. Medium of two teenage girls at shelter entrance
8. Medium of people arguing inside shelter, cameramen filming
9. Ambulance in streets
10. Paramedics around stretcher carrying wounded from car injury; people leaving as rocket hits; UPSOUND distant explosion
11. Wounded woman lifted into ambulance, pan to police cars in street
12. Police officer in front of ambulance
STORYLINE:
In border communities in southern Israel, the siren warning of rocket attacks rang repeatedly on Wednesday morning as 21 rockets and mortars were fired, the Israeli military said.
No serious injuries or damage were reported.
Residents of Sderot, a town of 20,000 that is a frequent target, stayed off the streets as sirens blared.
On Wednesday afternoon, a few hundred Israeli children were to be evacuated by a local billionaire businessman.
As the children were boarding the buses, the warning siren went off so the children ran to a nearby shelter.
At that moment, a second siren went off and a local driver had a car accident.
While the driver was being assisted by local residents and rescue forces, another rocket was launched on the town.
Earlier that day, Israeli aircraft struck repeatedly at Palestinian rocket squads in northern Gaza on Wednesday, and in one botched attack killed a 12-year-old boy, his father and uncle.
At nightfall Israel hit another vehicle in southern Gaza, killing one person and wounding three, Palestinians said.
They were not immediately identified. The Israeli military said it hit a car filled with weapons.
Gaza militants hit back with a barrage of rockets and mortar shells. Hamas said it fired 79. By nightfall, 44 exploded in Israel, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. No one was seriously hurt.
Among the dead on Tuesday was the son of Gaza’s most powerful Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, and the Islamic group that controls the territory
vowed to retaliate for the bloodshed.
While Gaza was heating up, a hawkish party pulled out of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government, weakening his political base but potentially freeing him to make greater concessions to the Palestinians.
In West Bank violence, Israeli troops killed the Islamic Jihad group’s top commander in a predawn raid on the village of Qabatiya south of Jenin, the group said.
The smoke of conflict overshadowed the spark of optimism that followed resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and news that this week, for the first time in seven years, the two sides began discussing the core issues of the conflict.
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