UPDATE: At least 60 rockets
With Barack Obama pressuring Israel to make devastating concessions to the “Palestinians,” this is the other side of Obama’s appeal: if you don’t give the “Palestinians” a state on our terms, there will be more jihad. If you don’t allow the establishment of a contiguous “Palestine” and live with a truncated and diminished Israel, there will be more rockets. The immense fallacy of this line of reasoning is that there will be more rockets and more jihad anyway, no matter what.
“Barrage of at least 30 rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel,” by Yaakov Lappin for the Jerusalem Post, March 12:
Israeli communities near southern and northern Gaza have come under heavy rocket attack on Wednesday evening. The IDF said at least 30 rockets had been fired in the largest attack since 2012’s Operation Pillar of Defense.
The IDF said eight rockets hit urban, civilian areas. One rocket landed in Sderot, according to police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld, although there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Israel Radio reported that up to 55 rockets had been fired into Israel in the deluge of projectiles.
Southern residents have reported several rocket alerts going off consecutively.
The Iron Dome rocket defense system shot down three of the rockets, according to the IDF Spokesperson’s Office.
The IDF fired artillery rounds at two terror infrastructure targets in response.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, according to reports by Palestinian media.
On Tuesday, the Israel Air Force struck an Islamic Jihad cell in southern Gaza, minutes after identifying it as being behind a mortar attack on an IDF unit on the Gaza-Israel border.
According to military sources, the terrorists fired a mortar shell at soldiers who were conducting routine security measures near the frontier.
Islamic Jihad said the Israeli strike killed three of its operatives. The IDF confirmed the aircraft’s hit on the terrorist cell, and said that the aircraft had then returned safely to its base. The army added that it would not tolerate any attack on military forces operating along the border.
Islamic Jihad has been behind a trickle of attacks in recent days that have tested the cease-fire in place between Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza and Israel.
Earlier this month, the IAF struck an Islamic Jihad rocket-launching cell about to fire rockets at southern Israel from northern Gaza, killing a member of the terror organization.
Last week, the Israel Navy intercepted an Iranian arms ship destined for Gaza, which included 40 Syrian made M302 rockets that had a range of between 90 to 160 kilometers, 80 mortar shells, and nearly half a million rounds of ammunition. Islamic Jihad was one of the intended recipients of the arms shipment, according to Israeli assessments.