BICOM

The Israel Air Force targeted at least three sites in Gaza early this morning in response to Saturday night’s rocket attacks on southern Israel, according to media reports.

On late Saturday and early Sunday three Grad-type rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel with one rocket scoring a direct hit on a home in Netivot. A man who was inside in the Netivot home was not hurt, but the structure and several neighbouring homes, sustained massive damage. Three people were hurt when they fell while running to a bomb shelter, and four more people were treated for shock.

Following the two Grad rockets fired at the south Saturday night, the Mayors of both Be’er Sheva and Ashdod closed schools in their cities yesterday, keeping some 100,000 schoolchildren at home.

This morning, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency said Israeli aircraft struck a training facility in eastern Gaza’s Tufach neighbourhood. Witnesses said a fire broke out at the scene, but that there were no reports of injury. The Gaza-based news agency, Safa, said the facility belonged to Hamas’ armed wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Safa also reported another strike on an unpopulated area in the northern part of the Strip.

Later, the IDF confirmed that the Air Force attacked a weapons manufacturing facility, a terrorist hub and a tunnel used by terrorists in northern Gaza, as well as a smuggling tunnel in the southern part of the Strip.

The army said all three airstrikes were direct hits, adding that the strikes were launched in retaliation to the recent rocket fire on Israel. Overnight, an IDF spokesperson stressed that Hamas is responsible for all rocket fire from Gaza.

Two weeks ago, a Qassam rocket struck a home in Sderot. Rockets home had already hit the same in 2007, critically injuring a woman there.