Gaza rocket slams into old age home in Ashkelon, injuring a woman
Resident of the facility taken to hospital with moderate wounds from flying shards of glass as count of rockets fired at Israelis passes 350
A 70-year-old woman was moderately hurt when a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck her elder care facility in the southern city of Ashkelon on Wednesday, joining several dozen Israelis injured thus far in the rocket fire that began Tuesday morning.
The woman was struck by glass shards from a window in her apartment that exploded as the rocket hit. Rescuers from the Magen David Adom ambulance service took her to the city’s Barzilai Hospital.
Israel’s targeted killing before dawn Tuesday of Islamic Jihad’s terror chief Baha Abu al-Ata was met by over 350 rockets so far launched throughout Tuesday and Wednesday by terror groups in Gaza, the military said.
The Iron Dome missile defense system successfully intercepted some 90 percent of all rockets headed to populated areas since Tuesday morning, but dozens of Israelis have still been hurt by the barrages.
Since Tuesday, two other people in Israel have been wounded directly by rocket fire, both of them sustaining light injuries from shrapnel. At least 23 more were lightly hurt after falling while running to a bomb shelter and 23 others were taken to the hospital after suffering anxiety attacks and other “stress symptoms” due to the attacks, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said.
An eight-year-old girl collapsed suddenly, apparently from a heart attack, while hiding in a bomb shelter during a rocket attack on the city of Holon on Tuesday. She remained in serious condition on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the IDF on Wednesday conducted large-scale strikes against Palestinian Islamic Jihad sites in Gaza, including a major weapons manufacturing facility, as terror groups continued firing regular barrages.
The Israel Defense Forces said one of its aircraft also bombed a pair of PIJ members preparing to fire an anti-tank guided missile from the northern Gaza Strip. The use of anti-tank missiles — an expensive, highly accurate weapon — signifies a marked escalation by the terror group.
On Wednesday evening, “Code Red” rocket alert sirens sounded continuously throughout the Eshkol Regional Council area, which borders the Gaza Strip, and in nearby towns like Ashkelon, Sderot and Netivot.
Since the start of the fighting, the Israeli military has carried out a number of strikes on terrorists who were preparing to launch rockets at Israel, killing several of them.
In total, at least 24 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed and 69 wounded since early Tuesday morning, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said.
PIJ and other terror groups in the Strip have publicly acknowledged that at least 12 of those killed were their members, though Israeli officials have indicated that the number is far higher. The Hamas-run health ministry in the Strip said three of the dead were children.
