Rockets rained down on the South on Wednesday as the IDF struck back at Hamas
and global jihad targets in the Gaza Strip despite Egyptian calls for an
immediate cease-fire.
In the third day of violence, the air force bombed
a motorbike in southern Gaza and seriously wounded Muhammad Rashdan, who the IDF
said was a member of a Gaza-based global jihad group and one of the planners of
the deadly attack along the Egyptian border on Monday.
Aleb Armilat, who
assisted Rashdan in planning that attack, was killed in the strike.
In
the evening, the IAF hit two more targets in Gaza, which it said were Hamas
training camps. The Palestinians said that two teenagers were wounded in the
strikes.
In another strike, a 14-yearold boy was reportedly killed as the
IAF bombed what it said was a rocket-launching cell in the northern Gaza
Strip.
The teenager was identified as Momen al-Adam. Two other people
were reportedly wounded in the attack. The air strikes on Wednesday followed
eight IAF bombings late Tuesday night throughout the Gaza Strip.
IDF
sources said that Rashdan was in the midst of planning another attack against
Israel from Sinai and that he was one of the key architects of Monday’s attack.
One officer said that the involvement of global jihad operatives in attacks
against Israel was not surprising, but was of concern since the groups did not
heed Hamas’s authority and would be difficult to rein in to abide by any cease-fire.
Some of the groups are made up of former Islamic Jihad
and Hamas members.
Others, the officer said, come from Arab countries
such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
In a sign that the violence was expected
to continue on Thursday, the Home Front Command issued instructions to the
public banning studies in schools that are not reinforced and are located within
seven kilometers of the Gaza Strip. It also banned public gatherings – indoors
or outdoors – of more than 500 people. The instructions are in effect until
Thursday evening.
Meanwhile, Gazan terrorists fired 55 rockets into
southern Israel throughout Wednesday, damaging homes and sending eight civilians
into shock. One rocket was intercepted by the Iron Dome counter-rocket defense
system on its way to Netivot.
The IDF said that its three operational
Iron Dome batteries were deployed in the South.
Police bomb squad
officials said 30 rockets slammed into the Negev region, while a further nine
struck the Lachish region. Gazans have fired nearly 100 rockets into Israel
since Monday.
A wave of rockets was fired at the Sdot Negev region, with
a projectile exploding in the front yard of a home.
Shrapnel damaged the
home; its residents took cover in a safe room before the impact. There were no
injuries in that attack.
Earlier, six Palestinian rockets exploded in the
Eshkol region, with four of them falling inside a village. The projectiles
sparked a blaze, and sent three women into shock.
On Wednesday morning,
terrorists fired a long-range Grad rocket in Beersheba’s direction. It fell in
the Bnei Shimon region, setting off air raid sirens but failing to cause
injuries.
Eight rockets hit farming regions overnight, damaging buildings
in Lachish.