An Israeli Death and the Tangled Conflict Left Behind

A Palestinian rocket from Gaza strikes an Israeli apartment building, killing a resident. A Palestinian work crew from the West Bank cleans up the mess.

RAMAT GAN, Israel — Four holes in the wooden door to his tiny apartment mark where shrapnel from a Hamas rocket penetrated the home of Gershon Franco, 56, and killed him. It was the early afternoon of May 15, a Saturday, the Sabbath in this bustling town just east of Tel Aviv. Mr. Franco’s death has drawn little attention. He was a poor Israeli, a loner, had no close family, a neighbor, Ovitz Sasson, said. The victim’s apartment, a single room, measures about 60 square feet. His belongings are still piled inside. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, far from Gaza, when a brief war paid an unexpected visit. It is the indiscriminate nature of Hamas rocket attacks, designed to create panic and havoc among civilians in random corners of Israel, closing the international airport during the latest 11-day conflict, that enrages many Israelis. What they see, as a Foreign Ministry statement put it Friday, is Hamas “firing from civilian locations inside Gaza, at Israeli civilians.”