The Israeli Air Force on Tuesday bombed a rocket launching cell that was preparing to launch a missile on southern Israel following an earlier Kassam rocket attack several hours earlier. One terrorist was killed and three others were wounded, one of them critically.
IDF spokespersons said the retaliation was carried out in the area of Khan Yunis, located in south-central Gaza and near the sites of destroyed Jewish communities in Gush Katif. The Popular Resistance Committee terrorist organization’s Nasser Brigades branch said its members were in the rocket launching cell.
The same group, along with Hamas and al Qaeda-linked Army of Islam terrorists, was responsible for the 2006 attack at the Kerem Shalom checkpoint that resulted in the death of two soldiers and the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Foreign media reported that the Gaza region has been “mostly quiet” since the Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign last year. However, the IDF noted that since the end of the three-week battle, which ended with a ceasefire, Hamas and allied terrorists have attacked Israel with nearly 300 Kassam and Grad missiles in addition to hundreds of incidents of sniper fire and roadside bombings.
A Kassam rocket exploded near the Gaza separation barrier two days ago, and two more powerful and longer-range Grad rockets exploded in the town of Netivot last week. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an arm of the Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, took responsibility for the attack, in which one person was treated for shock. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) also said it was behind the attack.
Following the attack, the first on Netivot in several months, the Israel Air Force bombed smuggler tunnels that terrorists intended to use to stage a massive attack against Israeli civilians in the western Negev.