One man was wounded when a Grad-type rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the Old Muslim Cemetery near Ashkelon’s city market. Several other people suffered from shock. Another rocket exploded inside the city. Gaza's Hamas rulers took responsibility for the strike.

12 June

Falsely blaming Israel for an explosion that occurred in a Bet Lahiya residential building earlier in the day, the Hamas-backed terrorists in Gaza launched dozens of rockets and mortar bombs into Israeli territory. On Thursday afternoon 3 Grad (Kaytusha) rockets, 18 Kassam rockets and 22 mortar bombs were launched at Israel. As a result of the Hamas fire, a 59 year-old Israeli woman was wounded in Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, as well as a Palestinian man at the Erez crossing.

The IDF also foiled a large-scale terror attack when Palestinian terrorists attempted to bring an apparently booby-trapped bulldozer close to the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip under cover of the heavy rocket and mortar fire. The bulldozer approached to within 50 meters of the fence near the Erez Crossing when soldiers opened fire. The terrorist fled back to Gaza.

It is noteworthy that the day after the Israeli Cabinet decides to exhaust the dialogue with Egypt in order to achieve a state of calm, the Hamas decides to unleash a heavy barrage of rocket and mortar fire on Israeli population centers. Once more, the Hamas terrorists are deliberately targeting Israeli civilians.

Behavior of this type reveals the true nature of Hamas as an extremist terrorist organization whose purpose is not peace, but rather jihad.

Amnon Rosenberg, 51, of Kibbutz Nirim was killed and four Nirlat co-workers were wounded shortly before noon on Thursday (5 June) when a 120 mm mortar bomb fired by Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip exploded outside the Nirlat paint factory in Kibbutz Nir-Oz in the western Negev, southwest of Sderot. Rosenberg is survived by a wife, Tali, and three children - Dor, Eldar and Yarden. 

The wounded were evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. Several people suffered shock and were at the scene.

Hamas' Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades  claimed responsibility for the firing of the mortar. The Hamas statement stated that "We will confront the occupier with all our means and we will continue striking the Zionist military sites and settlements around Gaza in response to the continued aggression against our people."

Zaka rescue volunteers at the Nirlat factory
after fatal mortar attack - June 5
(Photos: Zaka)

On Tuesday (4 June) five people, including two foreign workers and two Israeli Beduins, sustained shrapnel injuries during a Kassam rocket attack on an Eshkol Regional Council community in the western Negev.