Rockets Bombard Israeli Cities

Jerusalem Post

A rocket launched from the Gaza Strip hit a school in Beersheba on Sunday, exploding in its courtyard and damaging its outer walls. A second rocket slammed into the middle of a residential neighborhood in the city, damaging 15 homes and causing several residents to suffer shock.

“This is the first strike inside a city since the beginning of the current escalation,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

The latest rocket launches came amid an escalation in violence along the Gaza border that began after the IAF foiled a major terror attack, killing the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees, Zuhair Qaisi in a bombing on Friday.

Magen David Adom paramedics were on the scene, treating Beersheba residents for trauma and shock.

Police said that 29 total rockets had been fired into Israel on Sunday, bringing the total since Friday to more than 130.

Due to the decision, approximately 200,000 children stayed home on Sunday. The cancellation applied to Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba, Netivot, Sderot, Kiryat Malachi, Gedera, Rahat, Yavne, Lakiya and the Gan Yavne Regional Council.

Schools in the western Negev within 7 km. of the Gaza Strip held class as usual, as they are equipped with the necessary reinforcement to protect against rockets, the Home Front Command said.

The Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted at least eight rockets Sunday morning that were fired from Gaza towards the city of Ashdod and the surrounding areas.

Conditions in Beersheba during the current onslaught of Gazan rockets are unbearable and made worse by the shortage of protected areas in the city’s school, Deputy Mayor Dr. Heftsi Zohar said on Saturday.

“Most of the schools in Beersheba don’t have enough shelters or safe areas, so we have decided to cancel classes for Sunday. Most have secure spaces, but not enough,” Zohar said.

She added that she doesn’t know of any government plans to build more bomb shelters in the city.

Zohar said that commercial areas would stay open, but that “life does not go on as normal even though this is our regular life these days, unfortunately.”

She said the situation in Beersheba is unbearable, and that the rockets “affect the lives of over 100,000 citizens, especially children, who are living under terror.”