Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired a Grad rocket into
southern Israel on Tuesday night which fell into the heart of the town
of Netivot, lightly injuring one man and causing 11 other local residents to suffer shock.
Police
said that the rocket fell in a parking lot. A Police bomb squad was on the scene
dealing with the attack and emergency services were on site to assist
residents suffering from shock. An approximately 40-year-old man suffered injuries to his hand caused by glass shards.
The
attacks came despite reports that an "informal cease-fire" had been
reached between Israel and terror organizations in Gaza late on Monday
night.
Earlier on Tuesday evening two rockets landed in the
Ashkelon Coast Regional Council, marking the first such attacks since
midday. Previously, Palestinian terrorists fired five mortar shells and
two rockets at southern Israel just before noon. No injuries or damage
were reported in the attacks.
School was scheduled to be back in
session in the South on Wednesday after rocket attacks from Gaza kept
students at home for the past three days.
The Home Front Command
made the decision to send children back to school after consulting with
the heads of local authorities in Beersheba, Ashdod and Ashkelon.
Schools
had been cancelled in all towns and cities located between 7 km to 40
km from the Gaza Strip. The decision applied to the cities of Ashkelon,
Ashdod, Beersheba, Netivot, Sderot, Kiryat Malachi, Gadera, Rahat,
Yavneh, Lakiyeh, and the Gan Yavneh Regional Council.
More than
200 rockets have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel during
hostilities which began on Friday when the IDF killed two Islamic Jihad
terrorists that Israel charged were plotting a cross-border terror
attack from Sinai.
The
Israel Air Force responded to rocket attacks throughout the period of
escalation, killing 26 Palestinians in air strikes, 22 of whom were
armed terrorists.
Palestinian media reported on Tuesday afternoon
that the IDF shot and injured three Palestinians that approached the
Gaza security fence during a funeral procession for two terrorists that
were killed in an IAF strike a day earlier. The funeral was for Islamic
Jihad members Bassam al-Ejla and Mohammed Daher.
The IDF said that some fifty Palestinians came close to the security fence, and that they fired in order to distance them.
An
Egyptian security official told Reuters on Tuesday that both sides had
"agreed to end the current operations," with Israel giving an unusual
undertaking to "stop assassinations," and an overall agreement "to begin
a comprehensive and mutual calm."
"There is an understanding,"
Homeland Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i told Army Radio Tuesday morning.
"At the moment the direction is toward calm and it appears, unless
there are last minute developments, that this round is now behind us."
Also
Tuesday morning, an Islamic Jihad spokesman said the group would
respect the quiet as long as Israel stopped assassinations of terrorist
leaders, saying it would respond if more assassinations take place.