SDEROT, Israel — In this resilient town about a mile from Israel’s volatile border with the Gaza Strip, the streets were empty on Thursday but the residents expressed defiance as Israeli troops massed around Gaza after a barrage of rockets including three that hit homes here.

“We need to finish them off before they finish us off,” said Avichai Jorno, 34, whose bedroom was littered with debris and bathroom was destroyed by an unexploded rocket.

In Shuafat, the East Jerusalem neighborhood where a Palestinian teenager was kidnapped and killed the day before, streets strewn with remnants of Wednesday’s violent protests were mostly quiet, too, but for a smallish clash with Israeli soldiers. And the boy’s family was also defiant, calling on the Israeli authorities to declare the attack an act of revenge by Jews for last month’s abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers, not the result of a family dispute.