(AP)
Updated: 2007-09-11 10:00

JERUSALEM -- A Palestinian rocket from the Gaza Strip landed near an army base in southern Israel early Tuesday, wounding 25 people, Israeli medics and the army said.

A Palestinian rocket from the Gaza Strip landed near an army base in southern Israel early Tuesday, wounding 25 people, Israeli medics and the army said. [AFP]

The army confirmed that a rocket had landed in a base about a half-mile north of the Gaza Strip and said dozens of people were being treated on the scene for moderate to light injuries.

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fire crude rockets almost daily at towns in southern Israel, wreaking panic but rarely causing serious casualties. If confirmed, the injuries in Tuesday's early morning attack would be the most caused by a single rocket.

Attacks last week on the working-class town of Sderot, including one near a crowded day care center, led parents to pull their children out of school and brought demands for retaliation. Israel's Security Cabinet last week rejected calls for a large-scale Gaza invasion but threatened to cut water, electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and has mounted broad operations several times in the past, with casualties on both sides, but the rocket attacks always resumed after a pullout.

Israel continues to carry out routine limited incursions into Gaza to root out the rocket launchers, but the crude rockets continue to baffle the high-tech military.

Islamic Jihad, a small radical militant group, has claimed responsibility for the recent rocket attacks.