TEL AVIV. After a rocket fired from Gaza to the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon where alarm sirens sounded, the army in response hit Hamas positions in the Strip, including a weapons manufacturing site. The military spokesman made it known according to which the rocket launched from the Strip was intercepted by the Iron Dome, the anti-missile defense system. Tonight’s is the first rocket launched against Israel since last April.
Videos disseminated on social media show tall columns of smoke and fires rising from affected locations in various areas of the Israeli blockaded coastal enclave. The rocket launch was not claimed, but the Israeli army blamed Hamas. Leading the attack by Palestinian militants may have been an Israeli raid on the West Bank yesterday, in which three Palestinian militants were killed and eight wounded. The army of the Jewish state has been conducting almost daily operations in the occupied West Bank, since a wave of attacks killed 19 people in Israel earlier this year. Many raids were conducted in and around Jenin, the area of origin of various attackers.