(JNS) A heavy rocket barrage fired by Gazan terror factions at central Israel killed an Israeli woman in Rishon Letzion and injured more than 20 civilians in multiple locations earlier this week.
In Holon, eight people were injured and taken to the hospital, two in serious condition, said Israeli paramedics. Five civilians sustained light injuries in Givatayim, east of Tel Aviv.
Video footage taken by Tel Aviv residents showed dozens of Iron Dome interceptors in the air striking rockets as they flew overhead.
Earlier in the day, two female residents of Ashkelon were killed by Palestinian rocket fire on Tuesday, May 11, after their homes sustained direct hits.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad intensified and expanded the range of rocket fire throughout the day, firing further north toward Ashdod and threatening to strike Tel Aviv. The terror factions have fired some 480 rockets at Israel since Monday evening, May 10, reported the Israeli Defense Forces, of which 150 exploded inside Gaza.
The Iron Dome air-defense system intercepted 200 of the rockets heading for populated areas.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force launched a massive wave of strikes on Tuesday, May 11, sending 80 aircraft to destroy 150 rocket-launch pits, most of them in northern Gaza, said the IDF.
The strikes on the tunnels destroyed the firing capabilities of three Hamas battalions, which have “sustained a significant blow,” International IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters. “Some, if not many, of the firing pits that are used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are embedded within the civilian population,” he added.
Several senior terrorist commanders were also killed in Gaza as part of the IDF’s targeting of operatives and their commanders. These include Samih al-Mamluk, the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s rocket unit in Gaza; Muhammad Abu al-Atta, brother of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s late commander, Baha Abu al-Atta, who was killed by Israel in 2019; and an additional commander. The three were in a hideout apartment.
The IDF also killed the head of Hamas’s anti-tank unit, Iyad Fathi Faik Sharir.
“Our estimate is that the fighting will intensify. Kinetic activity will intensify,” said Conricus.
“They have also tried to use a tunnel, sending a special elite Hamas terrorist unit to conduct an attack,” he stated. “They are now trapped inside the attack tunnel. We know they were trying to emerge from it and attack on our side of the border.”
IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said that it had conducted strikes on more than 500 targets. “We are determined to strike terror groups in the most serious way possible,” he said.
