2 killed, 4 hurt in mortar strike on southern kibbutz
Massive bombardment of Eshkol region comes shortly before ceasefire takes effect; medics treat injured as sirens wail
Ilan Ben Zion is an AFP reporter and a former news editor at The Times of Israel.
Two Israelis died Tuesday evening in a mortar attack on Kibbutz Nirim, near the border with the Gaza Strip, and four others were wounded.
One person was in serious condition, and three others suffered minor injuries, in the strike on the Eshkol region community.
Fifty-five year-old Ze’ev Etzion, the security chief for the kibbutz, was killed on the spot as he worked to fix electricity lines damaged in an earlier mortar attack. Israel Radio reported that he was also a volunteer ambulance driver for Magen David Adom.
Nirim resident Shahar Melamed, a 43-year-old father of 3, died on his way to the hospital.
Medical care was given to the wounded as rockets and mortars fell around the kibbutz and Code Red sirens wailed.
The two Israelis killed Tuesday raised the civilian death toll in Israel in Operation Protective Edge, which entered its fiftieth day Tuesday, to six.
Last week a four-year-old child was killed in an attack in the nearby Kibbutz Nahal Oz.
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The Nirim attack came amid a fierce bombardment of the towns and communities of southern Israel in the hour before a ceasefire agreed upon by Israeli and Palestinian representatives took effect.
Earlier in the day, dozens were injured in Ashkelon when a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck a house in the southern coastal city.
