AFP - A rocket fired Tuesday from Gaza narrowly missed a kindergarten on an Israeli kibbutz, injuring a young woman and sending a child and an adult into shock, police and witnesses said.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP that the rocket fell at about 8:00 am (0600 GMT), as children were arriving at the kindergarten for the day.
"It fell within 50 metres (yards) of the kindergarten," he said.
Rosenfeld corrected an earlier statement in which he had identified a person injured in the attack as a passing van driver.
"A young woman was admitted to hospital lightly injured by shrapnel," he said. "The delivery driver suffered shock."
The Jerusalem Post said the shrapnel casualty was a 14-year-old girl. Haaretz newspaper said she was on her way to school when the rocket struck nearby.
Ronit Gil, who works at the kindergarten on the Kibbutz Zikkim collective village, said she was just getting out her car when she heard the sirens of the missile attack alarm, followed by an explosion.
"I saw that it was next to the kindergarten, I quickly went in," she told army radio. "We're under stress here... the children are forbidden to leave the kindergarten."
She said one young girl was suffering shock. The army said an adult man was also treated for shock.
Gil said the kindergarten had suffered a near miss in the past and had been partially blast-proofed since.
The attack was the latest in a series over the past several days and followed a night of Israeli air strikes into Hamas-run Gaza, in which two Palestinian fighters were reported wounded.
"In the northern Gaza Strip, three Hamas-operated tunnels were targeted," a military statement said.
"In the southern Gaza Strip, an additional Hamas-operated tunnel, a smuggling tunnel, a weapons manufacturing facility and a terror activity centre were targeted. All targeted hits were confirmed."
The statement said the "Hamas-operated tunnels are intended for infiltrating into Israel and executing terror attacks against IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians."
The army on Monday reported nine mortar shells falling into southern Israel, striking open ground and causing no casualties.
Thirteen projectiles fired from Gaza have landed in Israel since Sunday, according to the military.
Israeli warplanes on Saturday night hit central Gaza, killing five militants as they were about to launch a rocket attack, according to the army and witnesses.
The raid was one of the deadliest since Israel's December 2008-January 2009 war on Gaza's Hamas rulers, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, which cost the lives of 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.
Since Operation Cast Lead, the number of rocket attacks has dropped considerably but the Israeli army says more than 200 rockets or shells have been fired this year.
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