Israeli town rocketed before Peres visit

A barrage of rockets battered this Israeli town less than a half mile from the Gaza fence, seriously wounding a woman just before the arrival Tuesday of Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Peres clashed with his security guards over the visit to Sderot, overruling their demand that he cancel the trip. Instead, he visited a house next to a building that has been hit three times by rockets from Gaza.

Recalling the argument later, Peres said he told his security detail, "I can't go back. I am the president of all the citizens of Israel. I must come here to say thank you to the people of Sderot."

Peres also attended a ceremony in which a new Torah scroll was entered into a Sderot synagogue.

There appeared to be no connection between the visit — which Peres' office ordered kept secret until it was over — and the salvo of at least 12 rockets fired by Hamas militants in nearby Gaza. Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, was retaliating for an Israeli airstrike that killed six Hamas police officers in Gaza.

The rocket that hit the house Tuesday left a hole in the ceiling and damaged the living room. Another rocket hit a power line and briefly blacked out part of the town.

Sderot is a favorite target of Gaza rocket squads, because it is near the fence and presents a relatively large populated area within the range of the small, homemade rockets. The town of 20,000 has a rocket alert system that gives warnings of a few seconds before rockets explode in the town.

The rockets cause few serious casualties, but they have badly disrupted the life of the town.

Residents of Sderot have been traumatized by the almost daily barrages. Significant numbers have been diagnosed with stress-related disorders.

Before arriving in Sderot, Peres visited Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, where Israelis wounded in Monday's suicide bombing in the southern town of Dimona were being treated.