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Islamic Jihad fires heavy Gaza rocket barrage at southern Israel
Southern Israel came under heavy fire yesterday evening after Islamic Jihad fired at least 60 rockets from the Gaza Strip, forcing the region’s residents to take cover.
Rockets were fired in simultaneous bombardments from the southern and northern Gaza Strip. The Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted three rockets, but Haaretz reports that 41 rockets landed on Israeli territory, eight in built-up areas. Local residents were instructed to remain inside protected areas during the evening and no injuries were reported. The barrage was the largest rocket onslaught on southern Israel since Operation Pillar of Defence in 2012, during which Israel sought to stop an increased rate of rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli population centres.
Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the attack, telling the Ma’an news agency in a statement that it was “a response to the crimes of the occupation, the most recent of which was the assassination of three [Islamic Jihad] members.” On Tuesday, Israel’s air force struck an Islamic Jihad cell in Gaza which had just fired mortar rockets at an Israeli army border patrol.
The IDF initially responded to yesterday evening’s rocket salvo with tank fire before the Israel Air Force hit 29 strategic targets in the Gaza Strip, mostly Islamic Jihad positions. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he instructed the military “to take any action necessary to restore calm,” and that, “if there is no quiet in the south [of Israel] then it will be noisy in Gaza, and that’s an understatement.”
Prime Minister David Cameron, currently visiting Israel condemned the rockets, calling them “completely indiscriminate, aimed at civilian populations and that is a demonstration of how barbaric they are.” Meanwhile, US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki commented, “There is no justification” for “these terrorist attacks.”
Ihab al-Ghassin, a spokesperson for Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, blamed Israel for the violence and said, “we reiterate that resistance is the right of the Palestinian people to defend itself.”