Quiet Prevails in South After Friday Night Rocket Attack

IDF soldiers on Motzoei Shabbos arrested an Arab at a checkpoint near Yericho. The Arab was carrying a large knife, which was found when the soldiers examined a bag he was carrying. The Arab was detained and the knife confiscated.

Gaza Arab terrorists fired rockets at Israeli towns in the Gaza border area Friday night, and IDF planes responded by bombing targets in Gaza. The rocket fire came after several days of increased tensions in southern Israel, which began earlier in the week when Gaza Arab terrorists fired mortar shells at IDF soldiers who had uncovered a terror tunnel running from Gaza to Israeli territory.

B’chasdei Shamayim, the rockets fell in an open area and no injuries or damage were reported. The Red Alert system sounded, sending hundreds of people scurrying to shelters late Friday night.

On Friday, the security cabinet met for four hours to discuss the situation in the south. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said at its conclusion that Israel “would not accept the ongoing sporadic rocket fire on our citizens. We do not plan to go back to the situation before Operation Protective Edge,” when Hamas battered southern Israel with numerous daily rocket attacks.

In a statement Friday, the IDF spokesperson said that “the repeated attacks against the IDF activities to locate and destroy cross-border tunnels will not be tolerated. Hamas’s diabolical plan to infiltrate into Israeli communities must be stopped. The IDF has the obligation and duty to safeguard the people in southern Israel and the sovereignty of our borders, and we will continue to do so.”