Spent Kassam rocket
Spent Kassam rocketIsrael News Photo: (Flash 90)

Gaza terrorists issued an early-morning wake-up call to Jews in southern Israel on Wednesday with an attack on communities in the western Negev just two days before the unscheduled end of the June 19 truce agreement.

A barrage of six to eight Kassam rockets exploded in a variety of different sites in the Eshkol Regional Council district. At least one mortar shell was fired at the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council area as well.

No one was injured and no damage was reported in any of the attacks, although not all of the missiles had yet been located.

Residents of the area are fed up with the situation, complaining that once again, it is impossible to know what is going on with their children from one minute to the next after they have left for school.

On Tuesday, nine of the homemade Kassam rockets launched from Gaza reached communities in southern Israel, marking a turning point at which more than 10,000 of the missiles have exploded in the region since the turn of the century, when the Oslo War broke out. In one of Tuesday's attacks, a young boy suffered severe traumatic shock and a factory was damaged in the western Negev city of Sderot.

Less than a kilometer away, two terrorist cells on the outskirts of nearby Beit Hanoun were hit in a targeted strike by Israel Air Force pilots as they were preparing to carry out more attacks from ready-to-fire rocket launchers.