Sderot area residents again escaped injury around midnight Sunday when Gaza terrorists fired a mortar shell that exploded in the Sha'ar HaNegev area, adjacent to Sderot. No damage was reported.
Occasional rocket and mortar shelling has become a nightly affair the past several days in what is seen as a tactic by terrorists to aggravate Israel but not fire a barrage of missiles that might prompt a military response. The attacks also are blamed on smuggling tunnel operators who want to keep the Gaza crossings closed in order to make more profits on smuggling. Israel often retaliates aganst rocket and mortar atacks be barring shipments of goods at the crosssings,