The quiet and calm of the Sabbath were disturbed in the city of Sderot in southern Israel on Friday evening, as shortly before 9:00 p.m. the “Red Alert” rocket siren was sounded in the area.
Shortly thereafter, a rocket fired by Gaza terrorists exploded near a home inside Sderot. There were no physical injuries, but a parked bus sustained damage from the rocket, as did the home itself.
This marks the first time since the Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014 that a Gaza rocket landed inside the city.
However, Friday’s attack is the latest in a series of rocket attacks from Gaza, though quite a few of them have missed the mark and actually landed in Gazan territory. In one incident two weeks ago, Palestinian Authority-based media reported that one rocket exploded in the vicinity of a Gaza home, causing casualties.
While Hamas has had its rocket arsenals buoyed up by Iranian and other foreign technology, an Israeli crackdown on smuggled weaponry and weapon materials together with an Egyptian siege on the Sinai border has led Hamas to turn increasingly to its domestic rocket production industry to create new missiles.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)