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Heavy Barrage of Rockets From Gaza Hits Southern Israel Heavy Barrage of Rockets From Gaza Hits Southern Israel
(about 2 hours later)
JERUSALEM — A barrage of 60 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip rained down across southern Israel on Wednesday afternoon, sending thousands of Israelis scrambling into bomb shelters. It was by far the most intense attack since a cease-fire that ended eight days of deadly cross-border violence in 2012. JERUSALEM — Sixty rockets fired from the Gaza Strip rained down across southern Israel on Wednesday afternoon, sending thousands of Israelis scrambling into bomb shelters, in by far the most intense barrage since a cease-fire that ended eight days of cross-border violence in 2012.
Israel retaliated Wednesday night with airstrikes on what the military said were 29 “terror sites” throughout the Gaza Strip, after hitting two other locations with artillery fire. Officials in Gaza reported no injuries. Israel retaliated Wednesday night with airstrikes on what the military described as 29 “terror sites” across Gaza, after hitting two locations with artillery fire. No injuries were reported on either side of the border, save for a 57-year-old Israeli woman who fell while running for cover.
Islamic Jihad, one of several militant Palestinian groups in Gaza, asserted responsibility for the rockets, saying they were a response to an Israeli strike on Tuesday that killed three of its members. The Israeli military said the three had fired a mortar at its soldiers patrolling just inside Gaza’s border. Islamic Jihad, one of several militant Palestinian groups in Gaza, asserted responsibility for the rockets, and said they were a response to an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday that killed three of its members. The Israeli military said the three had fired a mortar at its soldiers while they patrolled just inside the border fence.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said that one rocket landed near a library in the border town of Sderot, and another near a gas station in the Negev Desert, but that damage was limited to roads. Three rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, according to the military. Palestinians and Israelis alike were bracing for further escalation overnight, threatening to subvert not only the nearly 16-month-old cease-fire but the American-led Middle East peace talks that started last summer.
Israeli news media reported that a 57-year-old woman in Sderot was injured as she ran for cover. A spokesman for Islamic Jihad’s armed wing said in a text message that the rockets “establish a new phase: any aggression will be met with fierce response.” Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said he saw “no alternative other than a complete takeover of the Gaza Strip” and would oppose any more limited operation. President Shimon Peres, one of Israel’s most vocal supporters of the talks, said: “The people of Gaza have to choose — it’s either peace or violence.”
“It’s very massive and it’s very close,” Dani Rachamim, 60, who lives on a kibbutz near Gaza’s eastern border, said in a telephone interview. “It’s frightening, because you don’t know where it will fall. I’m sitting watching the TV and I hear the red alert, and when I start to run to the bomb shelter, I already heard the boom. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement even as the rockets were falling around 5:30 p.m. declaring, “We will not be deterred.”
“I didn’t manage to arrive to the bomb shelter even, it was so quick,” Mr. Rachamim added. “I heard at least three booms around our kibbutz.” “We will continue to intercept and hurt those who want to hurt us,” Mr. Netanyahu said. On Twitter, he added, “If there won’t be quiet in the South, there will be noise in Gaza, and this is an understatement.”
Gaza residents were also ordered to stay inside as they geared for an Israeli response. The head of the Israel Defense Forces’ southern command convened an emergency meeting. The violent exchange came as Secretary of State John Kerry was pushing forward a framework for a final-status agreement that would extend the talks beyond their current April 29 deadline, with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority scheduled to visit the White House on Monday. Both the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip, oppose the framework.
A spokesman for the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, whose three members were killed in Tuesday’s Israeli airstrike, said in a text message that the rockets “establish a new phase: any aggression will be met with a fierce response.” Gaza and Hamas have suffered severe economic and political setbacks since the Egypt military’s ouster last summer of President Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist ally. Egypt’s new military-backed government announced Wednesday that it had destroyed more than 1,300 smuggling tunnels into Gaza, which Hamas officials say has cost the coastal enclave’s economy more than $400 million. Cairo recently banned Hamas, along with its patron Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist organization.
A senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, asked, “How can one talk about a cease-fire when more than 20 rockets are fired into Israel?” “This retaliation by the Islamic Jihad doesn’t come without a green light from Hamas,” said Mkhaimer Abu Saada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City. “Hamas is being choked financially and economically. It seems to me one of the options for Hamas to get out of this choking, to get out of this extreme financial, economic and political condition, is to open a new cycle of violence with Israel.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel issued a statement even as the rockets were falling. While Islamic Jihad asserted it fired 90 rockets, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said 60 made it to Israel, five of them landing in populated areas. One exploded near a library, another near a gas station in the Negev desert. Three were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system.
“It looks like this rocket attack came in response to our interception acts yesterday, and I would like to clarify that we will not be deterred,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “We will continue to intercept and hurt those who want to hurt us. We will continue to defend ourselves sternly against the terror organizations in Gaza.” Colonel Lerner described Israel’s retaliatory strikes as “precise and prompt.”
Palestinian leaders had expressed outrage over what they described as a purposeful “escalation” by the Israel military, citing the deaths of the three Gaza men Tuesday; the fatal shooting Monday morning of a Jordanian judge of Palestinian descent who the military said tried to seize a soldier’s weapon as he crossed the Allenby Bridge into the West Bank; and the killing of a teenager, Saji Darwish, 18, Monday evening near the Israeli settlement of Beit El. “We targeted the infrastructure that serves the terrorists while they train, plan and implement their hideous attacks,” he said in a statement. “They will not be permitted to conspire in the safety of their terrorist temples.”
“Israel is intentionally working to generate a culture of violence,” Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said in a statement before the rocket fire Wednesday. “Such incessant and unaddressed crimes will plunge the entire region into great instability and violence.” Throughout southern Israel, red-alert sirens returned residents to the defensive posture they had grown used to, as thousands of rockets have been fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew its settlers and troops in 2005.
After a meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, who is also chairman of the P.L.O., the executive committee released a statement expressing its “utmost opposition” to extending the American-led peace talks with Israel beyond their April 29 expiration date. Mr. Abbas is scheduled to meet with President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday in Washington. “It’s frightening, because you don’t know where it will fall,” Dani Rachamim, 60, who lives on a kibbutz near Gaza’s eastern border, said in a telephone interview. “I’m sitting watching the TV and I hear the red alert, and when I start to run to the bomb shelter, I already heard the boom. I heard at least three booms around our kibbutz.”
Adel Ramer, a teacher who lives on another Israeli kibbutz east of Gaza, said she had been hearing thunder all day Wednesday, in an unseasonable rainstorm, “so we’ve been hearing booms, but then we heard something that was definitely not thunder.” The rockets fell during a state visit to Jerusalem by Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, who called them “barbaric,” and said: “We condemn them completely.” In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman called the rocket fire “reprehensible,” saying “there is no justification for such attacks.”
Ms. Ramer, 59, said she was about to take her two mutts, Nikki and Nala, out for a walk when the barrage began. Hours before the rocket barrage began, the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization met with Mr. Abbas, who is also its chairman, and released a statement emphasizing its “utmost rejection” of an extension in the peace talks.
“We’re always waiting for the other shoe to fall, it’s always something that’s sort of hovering, you know,” Ms. Ramer said of her community. “We always take into account that it can ignite any minute and suddenly — like it just did.” Palestinian leaders expressed outrage over what they described as a purposeful escalation by the Israeli military, citing the deaths of the three Gaza men Tuesday; the fatal shooting Monday morning of a Jordanian judge of Palestinian descent who the military said had tried to seize a soldier’s weapon as he crossed the Allenby Bridge into the West Bank; and the killing of 18-year-old Saji Darwish Monday evening near the Israeli settlement of Beit El. The Jordanian Parliament voted Wednesday to expel the Israeli ambassador in Amman and recall the Jordanian ambassador from Tel Aviv.
“Israel is intentionally working to generate a culture of violence,” Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the P.L.O. executive committee, said in a statement at noon Wednesday. “Such incessant and unaddressed crimes will plunge the entire region into great instability and violence.”
In Gaza, Hamas evacuated government buildings Wednesday evening and urged residents to stay off the streets, where an intense thunderstorm was in some cases mistaken for Israeli bombings. The airstrikes from about 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. caused large, fiery explosions, but in open areas far from homes.
With the news that Israel had closed Kerem Shalom, the commercial crossing through which Gaza imports and exports limited goods, residents of Gaza City rushed out Wednesday night to fill their fuel tanks and stock up at bakeries and supermarkets.
Israelis who live in the south were advised to stay close to bomb shelters.
Adel Ramer, a teacher who lives on another Israeli kibbutz east of Gaza, said she had been about to take her two dogs, Nikki and Nala, for a walk Wednesday at about 5 p.m. when the siren sounded — and the rockets began to fall.
“We had thunder all day, so we’ve been hearing booms, but then we heard something that was definitely not thunder,” said Ms. Ramer, 59. “We’re always waiting for the other shoe to fall, it’s always something that’s sort of hovering, you know. We always take into account that it can ignite any minute and suddenly — like it just did.”