WORLD> Middle East
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WORLD> Middle East
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Israel sends more troops to Gaza border
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-01 09:20 "Negotiation is not a goal by itself; it's a tool," Abbas said. "Unless it is a tool to achieve peace ... there is no need for it to continue." Gaza's militants fired dozens of rockets into Israel on Wednesday evening, including one in the city of Ashkelon that was caught on video. It showed a man on a sidewalk ducking for cover along a wall as the missile exploded in a cloud of smoke a few steps behind him. The city of 120,000 people 11 miles north of Gaza has been a frequent target. Israel's rescue service said it had responded to 250 rocket attack scenes since Saturday and treated 48 wounded, most of whom had light injuries. School was canceled in much of Israel's south because of the rocket threat. The 18,000 students at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, southern Israel's only university, were also told to stay home. Beersheba, 19 miles from Gaza, had never before been within range of Gaza rockets, reflecting the increasing sophistication of what started out as homemade weaponry. Now militants are firing weapons made in China and Iran that have dramatically expanded their range and put more than one-tenth of Israel's population in their sights, defense officials said. In Gaza, two Palestinian medics were killed and two others were wounded when an Israeli missile hit next to their ambulance east of Gaza City, Palestinians said. The Israeli military said it did not know of the incident.
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