Tel Aviv - A Palestinian rocket struck a military base north of the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, injuring at least 47 soldiers as they were sleeping in tents, a military spokesman said. Another 10 soldiers were treated for shock, he said. At least 11 of the wounded were in moderate to serious condition, he said.
The rocket fell on a tent with equipment that was empty of soldiers, but shrapnel from the projectile hit several adjacent tents in which dozens of soldiers were sleeping, the military said.
The Zikim military base is located in the western Israeli Negev desert, about one kilometre from the Gaza Strip and south of the port city of Ashkelon.
A group known as the Salah a-Din Brigades, the military arm of the umbrella militant group Public Resistance Committees, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it fired two rockets at the base.
The attack came one day after Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met in Jerusalem, agreeing to set up teams to negotiate the core issues of a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli ministers and legislators called for an immediate, tough response to the rocket strike.
The Israeli military, on Olmert's instructions, has drawn up a plan against the almost daily rocket launches from Gaza at southern Israel that emphasizes punitive measures affecting civilian infrastructure in the impoverished and volatile strip, including water and electricity, Israel Radio reported.
The military was to present the plan to Olmert's cabinet on Wednesday, the radio report said.
"It is clear to all those who wanted to avoid a military operation [in Gaza] that the army must act," legislator Effi Eitam of the right-wing National Religious Party told the Israel Radio.
Lawmaker Avshalom Vilan of the left-liberal Meretz party called for the deployment of an international force in Gaza.
