Gaza Militants Fire Large Rocket Barrage at Israel

Gaza Militants Fire Large Rocket Barrage at Israel

• AP / Ian Deitch

12:52 PM ET

http://timedotcom.files.wordpress.co...0&h=734&crop=1A trail of smoke from rockets fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza toward Israel is seen above Gaza City on Wednesday, March 12, 2014.Adel Hana—AP

(JERUSALEM) — Militants in the Gaza Strip fired at least 20 rockets Wednesday into southern Israel, sending civilians rushing into bomb shelters but causing no casualties in the largest barrage in months.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said one rocket exploded near a gas station and another near a public library.

The military said its “Iron Dome” defense system intercepted at least three of the rockets, while the others fell in open areas. The barrage set off air-raid sirens in southern communities within range of the rockets.

In Gaza, the Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility for the attack. It said it fired 20 rockets to avenge the deaths of three of its members killed in an Israeli airstrike the day before.

Another Gaza militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, said they fired several rockets as well.

Israel’s military said more than 20 rockets were fired. Israeli media reported more than 50 rockets were fired.

The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks over the years. Israel’s military said they had targeted the militants on Tuesday after they fired at Israel.

Gaza militants have fired thousands of rockets and mortars at Israel. Attacks have declined since an eight-day Israeli offensive against Gaza militants in 2012 but rocket fire still persists. Israeli aircraft periodically strikes militants that launch the rockets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue striking the Gaza rocket launcher squads.

“We will continue to thwart (rocket attacks) and hit those that want to harm us, and we will act against them with great force,” Netanyahu said. “Last year, the number of rockets fired from Gaza was the lowest in a decade but that is not enough. We will continue to act to ensure the security of the citizens of Israel in the south and in the entire country.”

The Israeli military said Gaza militants fired 32 rockets toward Israel so far this year compared to 49 in 2013. Militants fired rockets at southern Israel on an almost daily basis before that.

An Associated Press reporter standing on a balcony saw more than a dozen rockets being fired from the southern outskirts of Gaza City.

http://time.com/21764/gaza-militants...age-at-israel/

Rocket barrage from Gaza hits Israel, no one hurt: police

Reuters

- ‎17 minutes ago‎

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired more than 30 rockets into Israel on Wednesday, the Israeli military said, in the heaviest such barrage in two years.

UPDATE 4-Gaza rockets, Israeli air strikes persist despite truce call

Thu Mar 13, 2014 7:59pm EDT

* Flare-up has included heaviest rocket barrage in two years
* Egypt trying to mediate calm; Israel threatens escalation (Releads with more rockets)

By Dan Williams and Nidal al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/GAZA, March 13 (Reuters) - A small armed faction in the Gaza Strip fired rockets at Israel on Thursday, drawing retaliatory air strikes and pushing cross-border violence into a third day despite a truce called by the more powerful Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.

The clashes have been the most intense since the Gaza war of November 2012. This time, however, casualties have been scant with winter rains keeping many people indoors, and Israel's Iron Dome interceptor shooting down some of the Palestinian rockets. Most Israeli strikes have hit unmanned militant facilities.

Hamas, the Islamist movement governing Gaza, has also kept its fighters out of this flare-up so far.

The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, which often operates independent of Hamas, began the barrage on Wednesday after Israel's forces killed three of its fighters a day earlier.

On Thursday afternoon, Islamic Jihad leader Khaled al-Batsh announced that a deal that had been brokered by Cairo to end the 2012 war was back in effect, provided the Israelis also complied.

"Following intensive Egyptian contacts and efforts, the agreement for calm has been restored," he said on Facebook.

Within hours, however, the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC), a Gaza splinter group, said it had launched eight rockets into Israel. At least four struck open areas and one was downed by Iron Dome, the Israeli military said.

Israel's air force then bombed a PRC camp in southern Gaza and "three other terror sites" to the north, the military said.

TALK OF REOCCUPATION
There was no immediate word of any injuries. On Thursday morning, before the Islamic Jihad cease-fire announcement, three Palestinians were hurt in an Israeli air strike.

On Wednesday, Israel carried out 29 air strikes and its tanks shelled militant targets in Gaza as Islamic Jihad fired 60 rockets. There were no casualties in Wednesday's exchange.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation, a unilateral move that boosted Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups hostile to the Jewish state.

Since then, there have been several outbreaks of fighting. In recent months, however, Hamas has sought to maintain calm after being weakened by the fall of sympathetic Islamist politicians in Cairo and by the resulting clampdown on arms and commercial smuggling from Egypt to Gaza.

Israel's hard line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has called for Gaza to be retaken and Hamas crushed. Such actions would prove to be bloody and damaging for peace talks with the rival U.S.-backed Palestinian administration in the occupied West Bank.

"The only solution to this situation of a ceaseless cycle of terror is reoccupation of Gaza and a clean-out of the stables there," Lieberman said on Facebook on Thursday.

Netanyahu, however, sounded more restrained. He vowed Israel would "hit back with increasing force" against anyone who tried to ruin celebrations over the next few days of the Jewish festival of Purim.

Israel did not publicly respond to Islamic Jihad's truce announcement but one of its senior defence officials said earlier on Thursday he expected the fighting to die down soon.

Palestinian sources noted that Hamas had not joined in the rocket attacks, an apparent sign that it hoped to avoid a wider conflict, but it did not immediately act to stop the launches, either.

Islamic Jihad has strong ties with Iran, Israel's arch-foe, and it is the second largest faction in the enclave. Smaller groups include al Qaeda-aligned militants. [ID: nL5N0IF36D]

Last week Israel's navy seized a ship in the Red Sea. Israeli officials said it was ferrying advanced Iranian-supplied rockets to Gaza. (Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0MA2FF20140313

Israel Fires Into Lebanon After Border Bombing

ABC News

- ‎51 minutes ago‎

Israel fired tank and artillery shells Friday night into southern Lebanon after a roadside bomb exploded near its soldiers patrolling the border. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said the explosion damaged a military vehicle near the border ...