Rocket Attack Kills One

When Palestinians speak of peace, they mean the complete destruction of Israel.

ERUSALEM — A Palestinian rocket slammed into a college campus in southern Israel on Wednesday, killing one man and lightly wounding a second person, Israeli medical officials said, in a sign of a possible escalation in the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The rocket barrage came hours after an Israeli airstrike killed five Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, and raised the likelihood of even more intense Israeli attacks. Palestinian officials said two people, including a civilian, were killed in a second Israeli airstrike carried out at the time of the rocket attack.

The Islamic militant Hamas militant, which controls Gaza, claimed responsibility for the rocket fire. It said it had launched more than 20 rockets at Israel, including eight at Sderot, the town where the deadly strike took place.

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Israeli media said the rocket exploded in a parking lot at Sapir College. Israeli officials said a student, about 30 years old, was fatally struck in the heart by shrapnel. Israeli TV stations showed a second man being carried on a stretcher with wounds to his legs.

Palestinian militants have fired thousands of crude rockets at southern Israel over the past seven years, with Sderot the most frequent target. The attacks have killed a total of 13 people and caused widespread panic throughout the area. The student was the first Israeli killed since last May.

"We knew this was coming. It's a shame that it happened. This is a difficult day," Sderot's mayor, Eli Moyal, told Army Radio.

David Barnan, heed of the college's students association, said he ran to the scene of the explosion and was shocked. "I can't put it into words," he told Army Radio. Barnan demanded that the government carry out its pledges to reinforce buildings at the college, but he remained defiant.

"This is our country," he said. "We will stay alive, we continue our studies, we will continue to do all the things we need to do, and speaking for myself, I can say we're not afraid of anyone."

Israel frequently carries out airstrikes and brief ground incursions in Gaza to halt the rocket attacks, and it appeared likely that the deadly rocket barrage would draw a new Israeli reprisal.