By Anna Ahronheim, JPost—
The Israel Air Force struck multiple targets in the Gaza Strip on Thursday evening, after a rocket landed outside Beersheba for the first time since Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Close to 200 mortars and rockets were launched toward southern communities since Wednesday evening, leaving 28 injured.
Shortly after the air strike on Thursday evening leveled a five-story building in the Al-Shati Camp in western Gaza City, more rocket sirens wailed in the Eshkol Region. The targeted building had been the headquarters for Hamas’s interior security operations, considered an exec- utive branch of Hamas’s political leader – ship. Many of its members are military operatives, according to the IDF. The air strike was in retaliation for the Beersheba bombing, “as expression of the IDF’s intelligence and operational capabil- ities, which will expand and intensify as necessary,” the military said.
The sole long-range rocket which flew some 40 km. from the Gaza Strip landed in an open area outside Beersheba shortly after 3 p.m. No damage was incurred, but it heralded an escalation in violence from the coastal enclave. Until now, Gaza’s fire had been directed at bordering communities.
Beersheba Mayor Ruvik Danilovich emphasized Israel must act more aggressively after the Grad rocket landed by his city. Continue Reading…