Roughly two days after a ceasefire reportedly ended the latest escalation between Israel and Gaza terrorists, a grad rocket was fired from Gaza at the major Israeli southern city of Beersheba. The rocket was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, according to the IDF Blog.
The Israel Air Force, in response to the attack, registered direct hits in strikes on a Gaza rocket-launching site and a “terror tunnel”—which in the past has described a tunnel used for infiltrating Israel.
“The IDF is prepared to defend the residents of Israel and will respond with strength and determination against any attempt to execute terrorist attacks,” said the IDF statement.
The back-and-forth comes after hundreds of rockets were fired at Israel in a four-day period starting last Friday, with dozens of IAF airstrikes in response. The escalation occurred after Israel killed the head of Popular Resistance Committees in an effort to prevent a terror attack he was planning.
The IDF warned towards the end of the fighting surge that they could intensify their response to the rockets beyond their numerous airstrikes. Such a warning was hinted at in Wednesday’s statement posted on the IDF Blog, in which Israel again accused Gaza-leading Hamas of being behind violence against Israel.
“Hamas uses other terror organizations to carry out terror attacks against the State of Israel and will bear the consequences of these actions in any future operation embarked upon by the IDF in order to eliminate the terror threat and restore the relative calm to the area.
As was done during the heavy firing days, children in Israel’s south will stay home from school tomorrow in light of rocket fire, according to IDF spokesman Eytan Buchman’s Twitter account.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, March 14, 2012)