An eight-year-old boy lost his leg in a Palestinian rocket attack on the Israeli town of Sderot, heaping pressure on Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, to launch full-scale retaliation.

Osher Twito was walking through the town centre on Saturday night with his brother, Rami, 19, when a volley of the unguided rockets hit, partially severing the boy's leg, which doctors had to amputate. He suffered severe wounds to his other leg and abdomen. His brother also suffered severe injuries. More than 40 rockets landed in and around the southern town over the weekend. About 100 residents of Sderot blocked the main road leading into Jerusalem yesterday in protest at the Government's inability to curb the rocket fire. A group of Sderot schoolgirls carried signs that declared: “We are not ducks at a shooting range.”

Israel launched an airstrike on Gaza in response, killing a military leader of Hamas, which controls the coastal territory. But that failed to quell the anger over the constant attacks on Sderot. One opposition MP called for Israel's military to “wipe a neighbourhood in Gaza off the map”.

Mr Olmert rejected calls for a full-scale attack on Gaza, but served warning that the Islamist movement's leaders, political and military, could be singled out for assassination.

“We will continue to reach all the terror bodies — those responsible for them, those who send them and those who operate them,” said Mr Olmert, recalling past strikes that killed a number of Hamas political and spirit-

ual leaders including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement's wheelchair-bound founder.

Mr Olmert emphasised that he understood the fury of the Sderot residents but cautioned that a large-scale invasion of Gaza, such as the five-month operation in 2006 after an Israeli soldier was captured by Hamas, was not necessarily the solution.

“The rage is understandable,” he said. “But it should be clear that rage is not a work plan. We must act in a systematic way over a long period of time. This is what we have been doing and we will continue doing.”

Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister, said that there could be no peace with the Palestinians until the rocket barrages, fired by Hamas and other, smaller factions, ended. Her comments dented recent hopes that had been revived by negotiations between Israel and the secular Palestinian administration of the West Bank.

Israel has focused its tactics on cutting supplies of fuel, electricity and all but the bare necessities to Gaza to squeeze its Islamist rulers into curbing the attacks. Hamas responded last month by destroying a wall separating it from Egypt although this has now been closed by Egyptian forces.

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