The firing of a long-range Katyusha rocket into Israel from Gaza on Sunday has ratcheted up concerns here for the increased threat of missiles against the Jewish state.

The weapon of choice of Palestinian militants in Gaza has been the Kassam rocket, which has relatively poor aim and short range, but has nonetheless caused damage and killed 14 Israelis and injured hundreds more, according to an Israeli government tally.

The Katyusha rocket is the type of weapon that was used by Hizbullah in Lebanon to hit Israeli cities during last year's war. Unguided but better constructed, it has twice the range – about 12 miles – and the potential to carry about twice the payload, missile experts here say.

The Katyusha was fired at the southern town of Netivot, about seven miles east of Gaza. It landed in an open space, doing minimal damage. The Popular Resistance Committee, a Palestinian militant group in Gaza that includes Hamas, claimed responsibility for the Katyusha attack.

While it wasn't the first time that a longer-range missile was fired from Gaza, the successful launch of one is rare enough to spark new concerns for Israel's vulnerability to missiles.

"Israel is worried over the fact that the range of the missiles being fired on the western Negev settlements has increased and views these developments severely," military intelligence official Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin said at the government's weekly cabinet meeting.

The increasing reach of rockets is making itself felt in the political debate as Israelis and Palestinians move toward a US-sponsored Middle East peace summit to be held in Annapolis next month.

"Sending missiles to Israel is a very convenient thing for Hamas at this point, and [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas cannot do much about it," says Bassem Zubeidy, a political scientist at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, near Ramallah.

"The most dangerous thing about this is that it might really spread, if things continue in this hopeless direction," Dr. Zubeidy says. "Israel's leaders are sending a message that Israel is not ready to go to that [November peace conference] unless something happens regarding the threat of those rockets. It sounds good in the ears of the Israeli citizens. But I think that the Israelis are asking the Palestinians to achieve the impossible, because Abbas is really too weak to have actual control over events around here."

Several prominent Israeli politicians have expressed reservations over any additional territorial withdrawals until Israel can put a missile-defense shield in place, something experts here say won't happen until 2010.

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