BICOM

Another rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Saturday night by a Salafist group with loyalty towards ISIS. It was the third such attack in the last two weeks.

Rocket warning sirens sent residents hurrying for cover in the Israeli city of Ashkelon and surrounding communities shortly after 9.30pm on Saturday evening. The rockets landed in a field in and did not cause any injuries or damage. The IDF responded with air strikes hours later on “terror infrastructure” in the northern Gaza Strip and crossings from Israel into Gaza were closed yesterday but will re-open today. Meanwhile, an Iron Dome battery was moved to the south as a precaution.

A radical Salafist group called the Omar Brigade, which is sympathetic towards ISIS, said that it fired Saturday’s rocket. It also took responsibility for three rockets which were fired last week and a Grad rocket fired from Gaza two weeks ago, which landed near Ashdod, in the first instance of mid-range rocket fire since last summer’s Operation Protective Edge.

In a statement via social media, the group said it wanted to remind Hamas that Israel remains “the enemy” and not the Omar Brigade. The group has made clear that the attacks serve a dual purpose – Targeting Israelis while challenging a recent Hamas crackdown on ISIS elements in Gaza, which saw a Salafist killed in a gun exchange last week.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday angrily noted the absence of international condemnation at the recent rocket fire. He told his cabinet, “I did not hear a single member of the international community condemn the attack, and the UN did not say a word,” pointedly adding “I’m interested to see if the silence will continue when we act in self-defence.” Meanwhile, the head of IDF Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman commented that, “the IDF retaliates to the incidents” of isolated rocket fire, “but will not launch an operation in the [Gaza] Strip because of them.”