SDEROT, Israel (AFP) - Two Israeli children were killed at the start of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot when a homemade Palestinian rocket hit this southern Israeli town, prompting an Israeli government spokesman to vow "necessary measures" to protect the country's citizens.
The strike Wednesday evening, claimed by the radical group Hamas, capped a day of violence in which seven Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli troops in the occupied territories.
"Two children were killed by a Qassam rocket that hit Sderot," an army spokeswoman told AFP.
Emergency services spokesman Yerucham Mandola told Israel private Channel 2 television: "We evacuated two in critical condition who later died in hospital," without giving further details.
Mandola said another 23 people were wounded, one seriously. Six were in moderate condition and another 16 were lightly injured.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the rocket hit a path running between two houses.
In the aftermath of the strike, claimed by Hamas in a statement sent to AFP in Gaza, an government spokesman said Israel would take every necessary measure to protect itself from Palestinian rocket fire.
"Israel, like any country under attack will defend itself with all necessary measures to make sure (the rocket fire) stops," Avi Pazner told AFP.
The strike came after columns of Israeli tanks moved in to the northern Gaza Strip late Tuesday in a new operation aimed at halting the flow of rockets fired on southern Israel.
"If this (operation) is not working, then we will have to make a further effort," Pazner said, without elaborating. "We will do whatever it takes to defend our citizens."
The so-called Qassam rockets are named after the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. They can carry a five-kilogram (11-pound) explosive charge and have a 10-kilometer (six-mile) range, but are generally inaccurate.
On Tuesday, four Qassams hit in and around Sderot, which lies scarcely one kilometre (half a mile) from the border with Gaza.
"This operation aims to decrease the launching of rockets and mortars in and outside the Gaza Strip," an army spokeswoman told AFP earlier on Wednesday.
The army has been battling with rocket attacks for months, and mounted a massive five-week offensive in northern Gaza in July and another four-day raid earlier this month.
The first fatal Qassam attack occured at the end of June, when an Israeli toddler and a man were killed in Sderot.
Earlier Wednesday, seven Palestinians, two of them militants, were shot dead by Israeli troops in various bloody confrontations across the occupied territories.
Three Palestinians were killed and 17 wounded as Israeli troops clashed with gunmen in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya as the army pressed its large-scale operation there.
The dead were identified as 22-year-old Tawfik Ali Sharafi, a fighter with Hamas' armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and teenage boys Ahmed Madi, 17, and Said Abu Eish, 14.
Later, after the attack on Sderot, an Israeli helicopter gunship fired two rockets on an unspecified target in Jabaliya, wounding two people, security sources and witnesses said.
It was not clear if that was in retaliation for the Sderot strike.
Another boy, 13-year-old Mohammed Jaber, was killed when Israeli soldiers opened fire on stone-throwing youths near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
In the northern West Bank, a Palestinian taxi driver and his passenger were killed by Israeli troops as they were driving in Jenin town on Wednesday, medics said.
The two victims were named as Rateb Abu Taleb, 50, and Mohammed al-Bitar, 25. Taleb's wife was also injured.
Israeli military sources said they had received concrete intelligence that two Palestinians involved in "terrorist" activities were riding in the taxi.
The seventh victim, a wanted Palestinian militant, was shot dead by troops at dawn in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian security sources said.
Majdi Khalifa, 25, was a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
Wednesday's violence brought to 4,355 the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian intifada or uprising four years ago, including 3,334 Palestinians and 950 Israelis, according to an AFP count.