Israelis injured in rocket attack from Gaza
Israelis were forced to seek shelter on Tuesday as the south was pounded by rockets from Gaza, hitting a number of targets including a kindergarten. The attack, by Gaza militants, was the biggest barrage into Israel for four years.
Israelis were forced to seek shelter on Tuesday as the south was pounded by rockets from Gaza, hitting a number of targets including a kindergarten.
The attack, by Gaza militants, was the biggest barrage into Israel for four years.
As of press time, three soldiers had been injured by shrapnel, and three civilians had been injured running to bomb shelters.
Rockets had reached an estimated 25 kilometres inside Israeli territory, the Iron Dome missile defence system was in operation and clocking up double figures of intercepts.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have jointly claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they are payback for Israel’s operations against their infrastructure in Gaza, and for “Zionist settlements” surrounding Gaza.
Israel has hit back against targets in Gaza with dozens of airstrikes, and destroyed a terror tunnel.
Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein said the conduct of Gaza militants crosses a “red line”.
IDF top brass, including Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, have been briefing local leaders from southern Israel, while IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis stressed the military is “prepared for every scenario”.
Suddenly, as soon as the mortars and rockets began, the Israeli area near the border went into crisis mode, and residents have been spending stints in their sealed rooms.
“We woke up today to the sound of five big explosions, a sound we haven’t heard for some time,” Konstantin Monascirsky, a local businessman, told The AJN on Tuesday afternoon.
“I don’t know if I’ll send my kids to school tomorrow because who knows what will go off during the day.”
Edelstein’s “red line” comment was prompted by the fact that one projectile landed in the yard of a nursery, and Monascirsky said he couldn’t shake the thought of this attack.
“An hour later there would have been kids in the kindergarten and this could have been a life and death issue,” he commented.
People are “very unsettled” but “not surprised” by the barrage, he added.
The military, like civilians, has been anticipating a spike in fire from Gaza, especially since the March of Return by Gazans came to a head a fortnight ago with the death of around 62 Palestinians.
And politicians are vowing to strike Gaza targets hard as long as rockets continue.
“The Israeli army will respond with great force to these attacks,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Israel will exact a heavy price from anyone who tries to harm it and we view Hamas as having responsibility to prevent these attacks against us.”
There has been international sympathy for Israel. The United Nations point man on Middle East peace Nickolay Mladenov was “deeply concerned” by the “indiscriminate firing” from Gaza.
The European Union’s envoy to Israel Emanuele Giaufret stressed that a rocket landed by a nursery and called the attacks “unacceptable and to be condemned unreservedly”.
The American administration is strongly defending Israel, and its envoy Jason Greenblatt called fire from Gaza “reprehensible”.
As well as dealing with projectiles this week, the IDF responded to an attempt to breach the naval blockade of Gaza.
The military announced that it “apprehended a Palestinian boat with approximately 17 Palestinians that attempted to breach the legal naval blockade”.
The IDF called the naval blockade “a necessary and legal security measure that has been repeatedly recognised by the world and the UN as important to the security of the State of Israel”.
It said this week’s events follow several weeks of Hamas trying to “turn the area of the security fence into an area of terror and combat”.
It has emerged that terrorists in Gaza were initiating an escalation last week, trying to carry out an attack in Israel using a drone that was packed with explosives.
On Sunday the army revealed that it had found the drone. Also on Sunday, Palestinians were found trying to plant an explosive device to target soldiers on the border, and Israel killed three men.
On Monday, forces found three Gazans trying to breach the border, and killed one of them. Also on Monday there was machine gun fire from Gaza towards Sderot, which triggered sirens and caused some damage, but no injures.
At press time, Israeli leaders were treating the escalation seriously, but saying that Israel has the capacity to deal with it.
Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Israel is ready to strike Hamas anywhere in Gaza if necessary.
The IDF stressed that Israeli forces will “continue to operate with determination against all kinds of terror”.
And President Reuven Rivlin said that Israel “will not rest until we return quiet to our borders”.
NATHAN JEFFAY
comments