I-50 Israel vows to respond to Palestinian homemade rocket attack

JERUSALEM - Israel promised a punishing response to a deadly Palestinian rocket attack Wednesday near the home of the country's defense minister..... The rocket — one of at least eight that struck Israel during the day — killed a 57-year-old woman walking to the grocery store in the Israeli town of Sderot near the Gaza border and raised the specter of a large-scale offensive against militant rocket squads.

Militants affiliated with the Palestinians' ruling Hamas group and Islamic Jihad both claimed responsibility for the fatal Sderot attack, calling it retaliation for 19 civilians killed by Israeli shelling last week in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

"The terror organizations will pay a heavy price," he said.... Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is at a meeting of Jewish leaders in Los Angeles, talked to Peretz and generals before the meeting, said his spokeswoman Miri Eisin..... "The operations in Gaza will continue without letup," Olmert told reporters.