Ashkelon's mayor Benny Vaknin declared: "This cannot go on." And the Cabinet agreed, sending 120 Israeli planes to destroy all of Hamas' military compounds in Gaza.

"People are hiding in bomb shelters and our children are taking cover under desks at school," he added, pleading - successfully - for the government to go into Gaza to knock out the rocket launchers.

Before the Israeli planes took to the air, Grad-type rockets were fired at Ashkelon - 11 miles from the Gaza border. One of them struck the home of Benny Gueta, sending several people into shock.

"We heard the alarm and the whistling as it approached and then we heard a big explosion which destroyed a storage shed and shattered some of the house's windows," he said. "We can't live this way - it's no way to live."

Sderot - a regular target of Kassams from Gaza - was also subjected to a rocket blitz.

"You can't send the kids out - you can't let them go to friends," said Adina Mastbaum, a 30-year-old mother of four young daughters.

"We are living by miracle. No people have been killed recently, but we can't keep waiting for miracles."

A rocket slammed into a house in the small community of Tkuma seconds after a father rushed his kids from the living room into a bomb shelter. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Hamas in the strongest terms to stop the rockets or Israel "will take action to defend its people".

The rockets kept coming... and Israel took action.

The terror group had mocked Israel's threats. "Any decision to attack the Gaza Strip will open the gates of hell and you will regret your stupidity with tears of blood," it warned.

But residents of rocket-battered Sderot were in no mood for Hamas rhetoric. And they were given words of encouragement by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu when he said in Tel Aviv: "The residents of the South cannot tolerate an Iranian base in the Negev.

"When we were in Sderot three days ago a Kassam hit the house of a new immigrant and single mother who spoke to me from the bottom of her heart."

Referring to the high percentage of new immigrants in Sderot, he added: "This is not only a problem of immigrants but of all Israel."