An Ashkelon man kept a live Grad rocket in his house for two days before police
sappers came to his residence on Saturday night and neutralized the potentially
deadly explosive souvenir.
Lachish subdistrict police said the man found
the unexploded warhead in an open field in the city last Thursday, and took it
home where he kept it in his house with his wife and kids, a decision that could
have ended in tragedy.
The warhead was found by police after a local
police bomb squad officer was told during a neighborhood soccer game that one of
the team’s players took home a piece of a rocket he found. The officer
reportedly told him about the danger inherent in keeping several kilograms of
live ordnance in his home and then notified police, who sent a bomb squad unit
over the next day to perform a controlled detonation of the rocket
remnant.
Police said the man also allowed his children to play with the
warhead in the family house.
Police on Sunday put out a statement in
which they repeated the call for the public not to handle or approach any rocket
fragments they may find, and to immediately call local police for
assistance.
Just this past month during Operation Pillar of Defense and
in the week previous, hundreds of rockets and mortars landed in open areas of
southern and central Israel, and not all of them are believed to have detonated
on impact.