Hamas Killing and Wounding Indiscriminately

EVENING UPDATE

Around 180 rockets and mortar shells have been fired into Israel today, with some getting past the Iron Dome defence system. As many as 14 are reported to have hit the city of Ashkelon this evening, wounding 20 people.

Another rocket injured a six-year-old boy critically while he was sheltering with his family in their home in Sderot. His mother was wounded seriously, a five-year-old wounded moderately and four other people were lightly hurt.

The rocket hit a neighbour’s home in their apartment block and a piece of shrapnel ricocheted into the boy’s home, piercing the window of the fortified room and hitting the family.

Home in Sderot burns after direct hit (photo: Sderot Municipality)

In addition, rioting has flared up in various communities, with some groups of Israeli Jews retaliating against the ongoing rioting of Israeli Arabs.

MORNING REPORT

A rocket strike early this morning killed two people on the outskirts of Lod, a city with a mixed population of Arabs and Jews that has experienced some of the worst rioting of the last few days. That strike brought the death toll in Israel to five since the upsurge in the conflict on Monday.

According to police the victims were a father in his 40s and his 16-year-old daughter. His wife was with them in the car and was seriously injured.

The car in which two died (photo by Magen David Adom)

Yair Revivo, the mayor of Lod, said the dead were members of the Arab community:

“Hamas missiles do not differentiate between Jews and Arabs.”

This incident highlights the appalling truth of the current situation, that Hamas and the other terrorist groups in Gaza don’t even care about their own people – they simply want to destroy the State of Israel.

Late on Tuesday, the Arab rioting that broke out in Lod was particularly severe, resulting in three synagogues and numerous shops being set on fire, along with dozens of cars. Israel’s government declared a state of emergency in the city and sent several companies of Border Police to restore order.

Some residents said that power was cut to their homes and petrol bombs were thrown through their windows. Local police acknowledged having to escort some residents from a community centre to their homes as mobs of Arabs ran amok in the streets.

The mayor reported that the City Hall and a local museum were also attacked. He claimed that civil war is breaking out and lamented the fact that the results of decades of coexistence efforts had now collapsed.

As the terrorists continued to fire rockets and mortars into Israel, bringing the total to more than 850 since Monday, the Israeli Air Force continued to attack targets in the Gaza Strip focusing on killing Hamas commanders.

Palestinian media reported that at least 43 people were killed in the airstrikes and that more than 296 had been wounded. On Wednesday morning, the Gaza Health Ministry claimed that 43 percent of the casualties were women and children, due to what it said were attacks against civilians.

However, this is a typical terrorist claim and the Israeli forces have once again gone to great lengths to minimise civilian casualties, warning Gazans of forthcoming attacks and using the warning tactic of ‘knocking on the roof’ of buildings that were targets.