Over 150 rockets launched into Israel, woman seriously injured
5 wounded as Israelis near Gaza sleep in shelters; army strikes over 100 Hamas targets in response to barrages; Hamas says pregnant woman, daughter killed
A woman was seriously injured in Israel early Thursday morning when a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip hit a home in the Eshkol regional council near the Palestinian enclave.
The woman was a 30-year-old foreign worker from Thailand. She suffered injuries to her abdomen and limbs. Another person was lightly injured, and several were treated for shock.
Thursday morning’s injuries brought the total of wounded on the Israeli side to five in the current cycle of violence.
Rocket barrages by the Hamas terror group continued throughout the night. The military said over 150 rockets and mortar shells were launched at Israeli communities since Wednesday evening.
Most of the rockets hit open areas. The Iron Dome defense system — which targets only missiles projected to strike communities — destroyed 25 of the rockets.
However, several hit homes and factories in Israeli communities, causing damage. One barrage that slammed into the city of Sderot Wednesday evening injured three Israelis. At least eight others were treated for panic attacks, including two pregnant women who went into labor.
In response to the attacks, the Israeli army said it struck over 100 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight.
The military said its raids targeted training compounds as well as weapons manufacturing facilities and storage warehouses. The air force also targeted one car that the army said was being used by terrorists to launch rockets at southern Israel from the Strip. One Hamas operative was reportedly killed in the airstrike. Unconfirmed reports claimed he was the relative of a senior Hamas commander.
Hamas said a 23-year-old pregnant woman and her infant daughter were killed in another strike. The woman’s husband was reported moderately injured. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Following the attacks from Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman met overnight with senior officers from the IDF and other security services at the military’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, to discuss the situation and decide on a course of action.
According to the Haaretz newspaper, the military was deploying additional Iron Dome batteries in the region in preparation for Hamas possibly increasing the range of its targets. During past wars rockets have reached as far as Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beersheba.
Sirens sounded in Israeli communities throughout the night, and thousands of families slept in bomb shelters and protected spaces.
Overnight six rockets exploded in Sderot, including two that hit homes and one that hit a factory. Another hit a house in the Hof Asheklon regional council. In all cases the rockets caused damage but no casualties. In addition, a rocket hit a factory in the Sha’ar Hanegev region, breaking through the roof and damaging equipment inside, a spokesperson for the region said. The factory was empty of people at the time of the rocket attack.
Hamas claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attacks, saying it was avenging the deaths of two operatives killed in an Israeli strike the day before — a strike that came in response to what the IDF initially identified as a shooting attack on its forces, but which was apparently an internal Hamas exercise.
“In response to Israel aggression, the Palestinian resistance has launched a large number of rockets in recent hours at the enemy,” a statement by the group said. “There was a promise [to respond] and now it has been fulfilled.”
The United Nations condemned the Hamas rocket fire.
“I am deeply alarmed by the recent escalation of violence between Gaza and Israel, and particularly by today’s multiple rockets fired towards communities in southern Israel,” UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement.
He called on all sides to step “back from the brink” and restore calm.
“If the current escalation… is not contained immediately, the situation can rapidly deteriorate with devastating consequences for all people.”
US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt also condemned Hamas in a tweet. “Another night of terror & families huddling in fear as Israel defends itself,” he said.
“This is the Hamas regime’s choice. Hamas is subjecting people to the terrifying conditions of war again.”
https://twitter.com/jdgreenblatt45/status/1027356788365123587
According to the military, among the Hamas positions bombed by the fighter jets was a factory where the terror groups constructs the concrete blocks it uses for attack tunnels and a fully operational tunnel opening near the Gaza coast belonging to Hamas’s naval commando unit.
An IDF aircraft also targeted a car that the military said was being used by a terror cell launching rockets at Israel.
צפו: כלי טיס של חיל-האוויר ביצע תקיפה לעבר רכב ששימש חולית טרור ששיגרה רקטות לעבר שטח ישראל pic.twitter.com/F2it1qXh7J
— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) August 8, 2018
One Palestinian man was reportedly killed in the strike, 30-year-old Hamas operative Ali al-Ghandour was killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
A Palestinian toddler and her pregnant mother were killed in another strike, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Enas Khammash, 23, and her 18-month daughter Bayan were killed in an airstrike in Jafarawi in central Gaza, the ministry said. The husband was moderately injured.
At least six other Palestinians were injured as a result of the IDF strikes, according to the ministry.
The Israeli military said the terror group, with which it was fought three wars in the past decade, would bear the consequences of any further violence from the Gaza Strip.
“The IDF sees with severity the terrorist activities of Hamas. The IDF is prepared for a variety of scenarios and is determined to fulfill its mission of defending the citizens of Israel,” the army said in a statement.
Residents of southern Israel were told to remain close to bomb shelters in case of additional rockets or mortar shells from Gaza.
The rocket attacks came amid a period of heightened tensions along the Gaza border, following months of clashes and exchanges of fire. On Tuesday, Hamas vowed to avenge the deaths of two of its members killed by IDF tank fire after the army mistakenly thought a military exercise had been a cross-border attack.
On Wednesday afternoon, the military warned that it was anticipating a revenge attack by Hamas after spotting members of the terror group evacuating posts likely to be targeted by Israel in reprisal raids.
Hours later, shots were fired from the northern Gaza Strip at a number of civilian construction vehicles along the border, damaging one of them, the army said.
In response, an IDF tank shelled a nearby Hamas observation post.
Wednesday’s rocket fire represented a major uptick in tensions along the border, amid intensive talks between Israel and Hamas for a long-term ceasefire.
Such an agreement is meant to end not only rocket launches and shootings from Gaza but also the regular incendiary kite and balloon attacks from the Palestinian enclave that have burned large swaths of land in southern Israel and caused millions of shekels of damage.
Throughout Wednesday, at least 11 fires were sparked in southern Israel by airborne arson devices launched from the Gaza Strip. Israeli firefighters extinguished all of them, according to a spokesperson for Fire and Rescue Services.
Judah Ari Gross and Adam Rasgon contributed to this report.
