Residents of southern Israel were wondering Tuesday night whether they would be sleeping in their beds or their bomb shelters again by morning. In Gaza, Hamas leaders were wondering the same thing.
A Grad Katyusha rocket attack was launched by Gaza terrorists Tuesday night on southern Israel. One rocket exploded in the community of Gan Yavne, near the port city of Ashdod. At least one teenage girl was taken to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon due to trauma from the attack.
Before midnight, Likud minister Miri Regev was already calling for a government response to the rocket fire aimed just a few hours earlier at civilians in the region. “It’s unfortunate that Hamas is trying to escalate the security situation in the south,” said Regev, a former IDF brigadier-general and spokesperson, currently serving as the government’s Minister of Culture and Sports.
The Hamas leadership began evacuating from their general security quarters after the attack. Gaza media outlets continued to broadcast the news that Hamas terrorist leaders are fleeing their headquarters, as they have in the past under such circumstances. The evacuation is expected to continue into the morning hours – or until all of the leadership is safely tucked away.
There was no immediately information about property damage resulting from the rocket fire. Five Code Red incoming rocket alert air raid sirens activated due to the launch — or launches — in communities that included Bnei Darom, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Lachish, in addition to Gan Yavne.
Things have been quiet for at least a month. Almost four weeks ago to the day, Gaza terrorists fired a Qassam rocket at the Gaza Belt city of Sderot. The rocket exploded on the outskirts of the city and did no damage but triggered air raid sirens in communities throughout the area and sent dozens of families scurrying for cover.
Tuesday’s attack was more serious, involving a more highly-powered rocket that went further north and was capable of far more damage. However, Israelis are for the most part well protected from such attacks due to frequent preparation drills by Home Front Command (two such drills are planned for the country in the coming days, as a matter of fact) and updated building codes that mandate built-in bomb shelters in each new housing unit.
Hamas has done nothing of the sort for its own people, however. As has been the standard in the past, there is nowhere for Gaza civilians to shelter or hide from any Israeli reprisal — in fact, the terrorist organization routinely urges civilians to stand on the roof of buildings in which rocket launchers are housed, and which are targeted for destruction by the Israeli Air Force.
The enclave’s Hamas terrorist rulers never built bomb shelters to protect their people from the reprisals they trigger after launching unprovoked attacks on southern Israeli civilians, assuming that gory photos of civilians deaths will evoke the endless sympathies of an international readership.