Spent short-range rocket
Spent short-range rocketIsrael news photo: file

Gaza terrorists fired a short-range rocket at the western Negev Wednesday evening. No one was wounded. The rocket exploded in an open, uninhabited area between the town of Sderot and a nearby kibbutz, in the territory of the Shaar HaNegev local authority.

The 'Color Red' rocket alarm was activated and two people – one of them a little girl – suffered emotional trauma and were evacuated to an emotional trauma center in Sderot.

Speaking with Arutz Sheva's Hebrew service, Shaar HaNegev Authority Head Alon Shuster reacted to the attack by saying that the rocket fire had slackened somewhat in 2009. “In 2008, we suffered about 4,000 incidents of rocket and mortar fire, and in 2009 there were about five or six hundred incidents,” he said.

The sharp decrease in rocket and mortar attacks came after the IDF carried out a successful counter-terror campaign in Gaza, beginning in late December 2008.

“If someone thinks that there is some kind of peace here – that is not the case," Shuster said. "It is true that the flames are not as high as they were and that we are taking advantage of this to strengthen the economy and for reviving businesses, but we must not forget that the threat of terror continues and that it may return. This will influence business, of course.”

"The incidents that happened this evening and throughout the last week are reminders that we are still at war,” he said. He was referring to rocket attacks that occurred on Saturday evening and on Thursday. No one was hurt in those attacks but an abandoned structure in a kibbutz was damaged.