BICOM

A Kassam rocket was fired yesterday afternoon from the Gaza Strip into the southern Israeli town of Sderot, landing between two homes.

Despite landing in the town of 19,000 residents near Sderot’s train station, nobody was hurt in yesterday’s rocket attack. Rocket warning sirens were sounded, but residents were not asked to stay indoors after the rocket landed.

Sderot’s Mayor, Alon David said: “Terrorism will not defeat us and will not break our citizens’s fortitude.” Referring to the period since Operation Protective Edge in summer 2014, he added: “These have been the quietest two years this area has known and it cannot be that an isolated incident will end the quiet.”

In an initial response to the attack, Israeli forces hit two targets, described by the IDF as “terrorist infrastructure” in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. One was struck by an Israeli plane, while a tank shell hit the second target. AFP reported that a 20-year-old Palestinian man was lightly wounded.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) took responsibility for the rocket launch. However, Israeli forces also struck an unspecified number of additional targets overnight, which according to Israel Radio, also included positions belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the PFLP. As the sole authority in Gaza, Israel invariably holds Hamas responsible for terror activity there.

An IDF statement said: “The attack on the terror infrastructures is a response to the high trajectory [indirect] fire out at the city of Sderot earlier today that is a threat to the security of Israeli citizens and harms Israeli sovereignty.”

However, the second wave of retaliatory strikes was unusual. Since Operation Protective Edge two years ago, rocket fire from Gaza has been infrequent and has almost always been met by a limited initial Israeli response. The IDF said that before yesterday, fourteen rockets had been fired from Gaza into Israel during 2016. In July, an empty Sderot kindergarten was hit by a Gaza rocket.