Rocket hits Israeli mall in Ashkelon

A clinic on the top floor of the Hutzot mall, close to Israel's main coastal highway, took the brunt of the blast.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command said its fighters launched the rocket, one of an almost daily pattern of militant attacks from the Palestinian enclave.

Ashkelon, which is more than 10 km (six miles) north of the coastal enclave, has generally been out of range but some more powerful rockets, notably Soviet-designed Katyushas or Grads, have struck the city of some 120,000 this year.

Rockets fired from Gaza have killed two Israeli civilians in the past week in agricultural communities closer to the border -- the first such deaths in over two months. In all, such rocket attacks have killed five Israelis in the past year.

The Israeli army regularly attacks Gaza, from which it withdrew occupying troops in 2005. Such raids have killed some 300 people in Gaza this year, more than 100 of them civilians.

After Wednesday's attack, medics said 31 people were treated in hospital.