Mortar shell and Kassam rocket fired at Negev

Violent day includes clashes with troops and a baby girl wounded from glass shards.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
jihad 88 (photo credit: )
jihad 88
(photo credit: )
A mortar shell fired at the Negev landed inside a kibbutz located near the north Gaza security fence on Monday night. No one was wounded in the attack, and no damage was reported. The incident occurred just hours after a Kassam rocket was fired at Israel, exploding in an open area in the Negev region close to the southern Gaza security fence. No one was wounded and no damage reported. Security officials said that the rocket appeared to have been fired from the Khan Younis area. The last Kassam rocket fired at Israel was on November 11, and the last mortar shell attack was three days after that. Until now, the majority of rockets fired at Israel were launched from sites in the northern Gaza Strip. Since the IDF pullout from the Gaza Strip, the IDF deployed artillery units along the security fence with Gaza in an attempt to thwart and deter attacks. As of now, the army's response to incoming attacks has been to shell open areas identified as being the rocket launching sites. Meanwhile today, an IDF officer in the West Bank was lightly wounded from a stone that struck his face during clashes with Palestinians that erupted at Beit Lakkiya west of Ramallah in the evening. According to the army, at least 20 Palestinian youths threw stones at troops, forcing them to fire rubber bullets and tear gas in an attempt to disperse them. The officer was taken to a hospital in Israel after receiving initial treatment the site. In the afternoon, two baby girls were lightly wounded by glass shards when stones were thrown at an Israeli vehicle traveling near Beit Omar on Route 60, north of Hebron. Magen David Adom medics treated the babies, and security forces dispatched to the site searched for the perpetrators. Earlier, security forces operating in Nablus arrested three fugitives affiliated with the Islamic Jihad, Fatah and Hamas.