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By ETHAN BRONNER and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: May 15, 2008
ASHKELON, Israel — A rocket launched from Gaza struck a commercial center in southern Israel on Wednesday, hours before President Bush, on a visit to Israel to mark the 60th anniversary of its founding, was to address a major peace conference here called “Facing Tomorrow.”

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Kevin Frayer/Associated Press
President Bush at the airport in Tel Aviv on Wednesday with Laura Bush, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his wife, Aliza.
The rocket, which the police said was Iranian-made, crashed through the roof of a health clinic in Ashkelon, about 10 miles north of the Gaza Strip. It badly injured a woman and her 2-year-old daughter, both in the head, as well as their doctor at the clinic. A fourth person was also injured.

Maj. General Uriel Bar-Lev, police commander of Israel’s southern district, said bomb experts determined the rocket’s Iranian origin.

“It has Iranian fingerprints on it,” he said in an interview outside the mall, crushed glass underfoot, after visiting the third-floor clinic that took the hit.

In the past week, two rockets have killed Israelis, a man working in his kibbutz garden and a 69-year-old woman visiting her sister-in-law. Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people, was struck by at least 20 foreign-made, Katyusha-type rockets in late February and early March, and Israel responded with an air and ground campaign left more than 120 Palestinians, including many civilians, and 2 Israeli soldiers dead in Gaza.

In Gaza, several groups claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s terrorist attack and Hamas, which controls the area praised the shooting, was quoted by Reuters as saying it “proved that Israel’s defense doctrine had failed.” Israeli leaders said it seemed a matter of time before a military operation was undertaken.

“We knew how to stop suicide bombs and we will figure out how to stop these rockets,” said Avi Dichter, the internal security minister, a native and resident of Ashkelon, who rushed down to the southern city from the reception for President Bush. Standing outside the damaged center, he said he was born a couple hundred yards away.

The cafeteria of Barzilay Hospital in central Ashkelon was turned into a makeshift clinic for the 60 or so lightly injured people from the attack.

“I was with my daughter in the waiting room of the clinic when a huge explosion hit and there was dust and debris everywhere,” said Clara Harari, 58, as she sat in a wheelchair waiting to be seen.

Political sentiment turned raw and ugly as a crowd gathered outside the damaged commercial center while police moved the injured.

“Olmert Resign!” they shouted, “We don’t want you anymore!”

Yitzhak Cohen, religious affairs minister from the Shas party, said as he entered the center to inspect the damage, “We should have cut off electricity, water and gas a long time ago and told them if they want it, they have to start acting like human beings, not animals.”

It was a sharp contrast to the day’s start, as Mr. Bush landed at Tel Aviv to a greeting by a 50-person military orchestra and a large entourage of Israeli dignitaries, including Mr. Peres and the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert. Israel is Mr. Bush’s first stop on a five-day, three country Middle East tour.

Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Olmert spoke of the longstanding ties between Israel and the United States.

But the Israeli leader, who is the subject of a corruption investigation that could cost him his job, was also caught on microphone giving apparent reassurance about his future to Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley.

“Holding on, holding on. Don’t worry,” Mr. Olmert was overheard telling Mr. Hadley.

After the arrival ceremony, Mr. Bush headed to Jerusalem for back-to-back meetings with Mr. Peres and Mr. Olmert. But he will not see the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, until later in the week, at an economic forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

The trip is Mr. Bush’s second to the region in five months, and his second to Israel as president. On Thursday he will deliver a speech to the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament.

He will also meet with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, who now represents the so-called quartet of Middle East peace-makers: the United Nations, Russia, the European Union and the United States.

At a press conference here on Tuesday to unveil a package of economic and security measures for the West Bank, Mr. Blair said it would be a “mistake to think" that diplomatic progress can be achieved without improving conditions for ordinary Palestinians.

For the White House, the timing of the trip — long-planned to coincide with Israel’s 60th birthday — is difficult. Most analysts say the prospects for significant progress toward peace are slim, and that Mr. Bush, who has just eight months left in office, is unlikely to achieve a major breakthrough while he is here.

But in a series of interviews before leaving Washington, Mr. Bush said he remained confident that Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert, who committed themselves to peace talks at a White House sponsored-conference in Annapolis, Md., last November, would be able to come to terms on the broad contours of a Palestinian state.

"I think there’s a good chance," he told CBS Radio on Monday, adding, "I think we can get a state defined by the time I leave office."

In addition to his slew of meetings, Mr. Bush will sneak in some quick sightseeing here as well. He is scheduled to tour Masada, the ancient fortress overlooking the Dead Sea, and to visit the Bible Lands museum, established in 1992 by an antiquities dealer whose goal was to promote mutual understanding by displaying artifacts that reveal the common origins of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

After leaving Israel on Friday, Mr. Bush will visit Saudi Arabia, where the price of oil is expected to be a major topic of a planned luncheon with King Abdullah at the king’s ranch.

The trip will conclude at the economic forum in Egypt, where Mr. Bush will meet Mr. Abbas and other leaders in the region, including Iraqi officials and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, Mr. Bush used his interviews to criticize Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that controls Gaza and opposes recognition of Israel.

"Their vision is to destroy Israel," Mr. Bush told Israeli television reporters in an interview at the White House on Tuesday. "How about a vision that says we want to coexist with Israel so we can raise our children in peace? Now, I’m sure, people say, Bush, oh man, he sounds hopelessly idealistic. But the truth of the matter is, in order for peace to be secure, it’s that kind of idealism that has got to prevail."

In an interview with CBS, he said: "What’s going to have to happen is that the Palestinians see a state that has got borders and doesn’t look like Swiss cheese, continuous territory that is — as well as, obviously going to have to see economic conditions start to improve and security conditions improve."

Independent analysts do not share the president’s idealism. Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told reporters last week he could hardly think of a "less auspicious" time to pursue the peace talks.

Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas, though committed to the talks, are both weakened leaders who may have a difficult time selling any deal to their people. Despite his support from Mr. Bush, Mr. Abbas is struggling to provide economic support and security to his constituents in the West Bank, even as he contends with competition from his Hamas rivals in Gaza.

Ami Ayalon, a member of the Israeli Parliament who has long advocated negotiating with the Palestinians, said Mr. Bush’s trip here is "the last chance to do something to aid the pragmatists" in the region who want peace.

"If the visit passes and the pragmatists in the region feel that nothing has changed," Mr. Ayalon said, "I believe we are headed toward more violence and more terror and more power for Hamas."

Ethan Bronner reported from Ashkelon, Israel, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Jerusalem.