Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

45 Rockets And Mortars Fired From Gaza On Israel

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Residents of southern Israel spent the night running to bomb shelters and safe rooms as some 45 rockets and mortar shells were fired from Gaza.

The rockets were fired early Wednesday morning beginning about an hour after Israel Air Force jets fired on three military targets in a Hamas compound in the southern Gaza Strip “in response to the repeated launching of incendiary kites and balloons with explosive devices attached to them from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory,” the IDF Spokesmen’s Unit said.

The Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted seven of the rockets and three landed inside Gazan territory.

At least six of the rockets fired from Gaza landed inside Israeli communities near the border, including one that landed inside the courtyard of a kindergarten building. The rest landed in unpopulated areas of southern Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces responded to the rocket and mortar attacks by firing on 25 terror targets in Hamas military bases throughout Gaza, the IDF said in a statement.

The IDF in the statement accused Hamas of “targeting Israeli civilians throughout the night with a severe rocket attack and dragging the Gaza Strip and its civilians down a deteriorating path and an escalation” of the conflict.

Hamas in Gaza in a statement called its shooting of rockets at southern Israel “a legitimate right. The message of the shelling is to confirm that the resistance is determining the rules of engagement and will not allow the enemy to impose any new equations,” referring to Israel’s new policy of firing on Hamas targets in Gaza in response to the incendiary kites and balloons.

Early on Wednesday afternoon, the IDF fired on a group of Palestinians launching arson balloons from the southern Gaza Strip.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.