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EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton visits Gaza on Thursday. She told journalists she told journalists she was "extremely shocked" by the Palestinian rocket attack that killed a man in Israel.
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JERUSALEM (AFP)---A Palestinian group, the Al-Qaeda-inspired Ansar al-Sunna Brigade, claimed responsibility for Thursday's fatal rocket attack, which killed a Thai labourer working inside Israel near the Gaza border.
The group linked it to clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police in Jerusalem earlier this week.
The Ansar al-Sunna Brigade said the rocket attack was "an answer to Zionist aggression against the Al-Aqsa mosque and holy sites and our people" in the Holy City.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the killing.
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Manee Singueanphon, a 33-year-old Thai foreign worker was killed when a Kassam rocket hit a greenhouse in Moshav Netiv Ha'asara in the Ashkelon area, north of the Gaza Strip.
The rocket exploded inside the greenhouse, causing it and adjacent greenhouses severe damage.
"This is one rocket out of 12,000 that the citizens of Israel have endured in recent years. The responsibility for this attack rests with Hamas,' Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said.
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"All such acts of terror and violence against civilians are totally unacceptable and contrary to international law," his office said.
European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, who visited the Gaza Strip on Thursday, told journalists she was "extremely shocked" by the rocket attack.
"I condemn any violence," she said. "We have got to find a peaceful solution to the issues and problems.We have to move forward," she added.
She made a plea for Palestinian-Israeli talks to get under way "as quickly as we can."
Both Ashton and Ban were due to take part in Friday's meeting of the international Quartet for the Middle East in Moscow, together with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said late Thursday that he had spoken by phone with Clinton.
In their conversation, Netanyahu raised "mutual confidence-building measures" that could be carried out by Israel and the Palestinians.
In a bid to defuse US-Israel tension, President Barack Obama has insisted there is no crisis.
"We and the Israeli people have a special bond that's not going to go away," he told Fox News.
Following the Moscow talks, Ban is to visit the Middle East, including
Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, this weekend.
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who brokered a now uncertain deal for
indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians on a previous visit, also
is due back in the region on Sunday, according to one senior Palestinian
official.
He is expected to meet Netanyahu before the Israeli premier leaves on a US visit.