Six Kassam rockets struck Sderot on Wednesday evening, and two more landed near Ashkelon, injuring two people. This, despite the creation of a security zone on the site of destroyed Jewish towns in northern Gaza.
The Kassams that struck Sderot fell, once again, very close to a gas station on Road #34. Police say a direct hit could have detonated underground gas storage tanks and would have been devastating. Three rockets were also fired Tuesday night, one of them impacting near the same gas station.
Sderot residents ran for cover as the Red Dawn early warning system sounded its sirens several times throughout the night Tuesday and again Wednesday evening. The system alerts residents of an incoming missile, giving them half-a-minute to find cover.
Dozens of rockets have been fired as Sderot in the past week. IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz told the Knesset Defense Committee Tuesday that the security zone created in northern Gaza was only designed to protect Ashkelon’s power station, and not the residents of Sderot and the western Negev.
In southern Gaza, armed terrorists used a bulldozer to knock down the concrete walls along the Gaza-Egypt border, opening the previously guarded passage to throngs of local Arabs from both sides that began crossing back and forth unchecked. Two Egyptian soldiers were killed and 37 injured before the 3,000 Egyptian troops stationed at the border chose to retreat rather than fire at the infiltrators. The border has previously been the site of intense IDF anti-smuggling efforts. Since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal, however, the transport of heavy weaponry and drugs over the border goes unhindered.
Elsewhere in Gaza, armed Fatah terrorists tried to kidnap the parents of Rachel Corrie, the American ISM activist who died while protesting IDF activities in Gaza in 2003. Once the terrorists were informed of the Corries’ alliances, they moved on.
Overnight Wednesday, security forces arrested eight wanted terrorists in Judea and Samaria. Three Islamic Jihad terrorists were apprehended in the village of Dir Al-Atzun, near Tul Karem, one PFLP terrorist was caught in the Jenin slums, and four Hamas terrorists were captured near Bethlehem and Ramallah.