Thursday, Hamas fired a long-range Grad 122-mm Katyusha rocket, which struck a penthouse on the eighth floor of an apartment building in Ashdod. Firefighters rushed to the scene to battle the subsequent blaze ignited in two apartments by the rocket, and officials said the building was severely damaged.

Magen David Adom medics treated a number of people for severe emotional trauma, but no one suffered any physical injuries. There were people in the apartments at the time of the missile impact. By some miracle, no one was killed or injured.

The attack was the latest in a series of Hamas rocket strikes against Israel this week.

On Wednesday, Gazans launched an unprecedented salvo of rockets toward Beersheba – marking the first time since 1948 the town has been targeted.

<!–
AdSys ad not found for top_stories:instory –>

One rocket hit a Beersheba high school and destroyed the ninth-grade class completely, and another rocket destroyed a nursery school in the Israeli town.

However, because the Israel Home Front Command had decided to order Beersheba not to hold classes as of Wednesday, the high school and the nursery school were unoccupied and no one was injured.

The attack on the Beersheba high school was one of more than 80 Gaza rocket attacks that hit the Western Negev throughout Wednesday and Thursday.

In the wake of the attacks on Beersheba, the Israeli government sent Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to France to inform the French government Israel had decided to reject the French initiative for a 48-hour cease-fire following the rocket attack on Beersheba. Ms. Livni carried a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, stating, “If Hamas permits itself to fire at Beersheba, Israel has not yet reached the necessary level of deterrence.” 


The Israeli Air Force (IAF) attacked the house of Nizar Rayan, a senior Hamas official who has been identified as having been involved in directing terror attacks.

The attack was carried out based on IDF and Israeli intelligence, catching him at his home in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Palestinian refugee camp in Jabaliya.

Many secondary explosions followed the attack, confirming the house had been used for storing weaponry. It served as a communications center, and a tunnel located under the house had been used to help terror operatives.

As the religious leader of Hamas, Mr. Rayan was considered the successor to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas, whom Israel killed in 2004. According to Israel intelligence sources, Mr. Rayan was also the commander of the military wing of Hamas, known as the Izz-ad-din Qassam Brigades. Said to be a strong advocate of suicide bombings – he was often seen in uniform and was associated with a number of terrorist attacks.

The IAF also attacked the home of Muhamad Fuad Barhud (a senior terror operative 
in the Resistance Committees), also at the UNRWA camp in Jabaliya. Mr. Barhud was also responsible for directing rocket and mortar attacks from northern Gaza. His house, among others, was also used as a storage site for various weapons 
including anti-tank missiles, rockets and explosive devices used by both, the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees and Hamas.

Israel also attacked the house of Hasin Drairy, another terror operative, in Sabra, located in northern Gaza. Hamas used his house as a storage site for
rockets and mortar shells as well as for rocket manufacturing.

In addition, the IAF struck a weapon storage facility in the house of Taufik 
Abu Ras, a Hamas terror operative from A-Nusseirat. His house also had served as a manufacturing laboratory and a storage site for a wide array of weaponry, including rockets and explosive devices.

In all, the IAF targeted more than 20 targets Thursday, including weapons 
storage facilities, rocket launching sites and tunnels used by Hamas.

Israel has positioned its troops along the Gaza border in preparation for a possible ground assault. They stand prepared to go in, waiting for the go-ahead, which has not yet been given. Weather has slowed things down, and a guessing game has Israelis wondering when the IAF will invade Gaza.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Previous articleIsraeli Civil Rights Lobby And Human Shields In Gaza
Next articleIsrael Launches Its Gaza Ground Invasion
David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR