By Ari Rabinovitch SDEROT, Israel, Nov 16 (Reuters) - When the siren sounds, residents of this southern Israeli town opposite Gaza have 20 seconds to find a safe place before the rockets land. "At home the family runs to our shelter. If you are outside, you stand up against a wall," said Milenna Alhazov, 15, hanging out at a shop in Sderot after her parents refused to send her to school in protest at Palestinian rocket attacks this week. One of the heaviest barrages of makeshift missiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip in months killed a woman and badly wounded several other people in the border town on Wednesday. For the 20,000 people who live in working-class Sderot, the sirens are a constant reminder that Israel is at war with Palestinian militants just over the border fence. The sirens sound when military radar detects a launching. The rockets often land in the nearby desert and they rarely kill anyone along the Gaza frontier. Wednesday's attack was the first deadly strike since July 2005. But they cause panic and frustration at the army's inability to stop the rockets, commonly known as Qassams. Landscaper Shlomo Zarka, 49, said he saw a rocket fly overhead last week and land near a bank. "People don't realise how serious they are until someone is killed. Just leaving your house means taking a chance," he said. Sderot is the main target for rocket squads because it lies so close to Gaza -- less than 5 km (3 miles) away. Many residents here had hoped that after Israel withdrew soldiers and Jewish settlers from Gaza last year following 38 years of occupation, the attacks would end. Around 1,000 rockets have struck southern Israel since then. Palestinian gunmen call the rocket strikes self-defence. They have said Wednesday's strikes for instance were in response to shelling last week that killed 19 Palestinian civilians in the town of Beit Hanoun, not far from Sderot. Israel said that artillery barrage was aimed at areas militants use to fire rockets but went off course because of a technical failure. "Rockets by the resistance have proven effective as a measure to create a balance of horror to Israeli bombardments and daily killings of our innocent people," said Abu Mujahed, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees militant group. FEW SOLUTIONS While right-wing Israeli politicians have called for a harsh response to the latest rocket attacks, analysts noted the limitations of military assaults. "The only possible solution to the rocket fire would be a complete and protracted takeover of most of northern Gaza," said Alon Ben-David, Israel analyst for Jane's Defence Weekly. Many of the rockets on Wednesday were fired from around Beit Hanoun, which the army had virtually seized in a week-long operation early this month. In Sderot, people are on edge, especially the paramedics. When sirens sound, they jump into their ambulances and listen for the explosion. Then they rush to the scene. "The Qassams are armed with shrapnel and ball-bearings that are sent flying when the rocket lands," said Haim Ben-Shimon, 55, head of the Magen David Adom ambulance service in Sderot. "They are meant to shred the body and tear off limbs. That's what happened yesterday." (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Dan Williams in Jerusalem)
