Rockets fired into north Israel

Two Katyusha rockets hit the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona near the border with Lebanon today, the Israeli army and …

Two Katyusha rockets hit the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona near the border with Lebanon today, the Israeli army and police said.

It was the first apparent cross-border attack since last year's war between Israel and Hizbullah guerrillas in Lebanon.

A security source in Lebanon said it was not Hizbullah but Palestinian fighters who were suspected of firing four or five rockets from southern Lebanon into Israel, an area bombarded by thousands of Hizbullah Katyushas last July and August.

"There were four or five rockets fired into northern Israel," the source said.

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Israeli emergency services and police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said there were no casualties reported in the town but, police said, a car and roadways were damaged. Residents were ordered into air raid shelters, Israeli television said.

One television channel showed a car with its front smashed and with a shattered windscreen as well as an apparently shrapnel-sprayed street sign at the entrance to an industrial zone in Kiryat Shmona.

The strike came as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas named an emergency government following the violent takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas Islamists who had led the government Mr Abbas dismissed on Thursday.