UPDATE: Carl in J’Lem says: Palestinian Islamic Jihad has taken responsibility. At least one of the rockets hit an empty beach.
Booms heard in Tel Aviv area following warning siren
Three Israelis killed in Kiryat Malachi; rocket falls in Eshkol wounding 3 IDF soldiers as rockets continue to fall on South; IAF strikes nearly 200 targets in Strip; 15 Palestinians killed in strikes.
Two booms were head in Tel Aviv following an air raid siren Thursday evening, just an hour after rocket from the Gaza Strip exploded in an open field outside of Rishon Lezion.
The attacks mark the first hit in the center of the country in renewed violence from the Gaza Strip. The incident marked the first time that a real siren was sounded in Tel Aviv since the Gulf War in the early 1990s.
The rockets, among over 250 fired from Gaza into the South since the IDF launched Operation Pillar of Defense Wednesday to root out the terror infrastructure in the coastal territory, landed less than 15 km south of Tel Aviv. The operation began with the Wednesday afternoon targeted killing of Ahmed Jabari, the chief of Hamas’s military wing.
Earlier Thursday, three people were killed and two others injured in a direct hit on a Kiryat Malachi apartment building. Hours later, a rocket fired into the Eshkol region injured three IDF soldiers, two moderately.
MDA paramedics treated five wounded people at the site of the Kiryat Malachi attack, in which a rocket hit a four-story building. Three people were pronounced dead on the scene and two others were suffering moderate injuries, including a baby.
A house in Ashdod and a school in Ofakim near Beersheba also sustained damage from rockets on Thursday morning. Rockets also landed in the Eshkol Regional Council area, Gan Yavne and Ashkelon.
The IDF Spokesman’s Office stated the Iron Dome rocket defense system has successfully intercepted more than 80 rockets since the operation began.
