One dead, 85 injured as Gaza rocket fire rains down

Gaza rocket fire killed one man and seriously injured two women Monday night.

By World Israel News Staff

A 48-year-old man was killed when a rocket struck his house in Ashkelon late Monday night.

Mahmoud Abu Asbah, a Palestinian worker who hailed from the town of Halhul north of Hebron, was the first fatality since terrorists began firing rockets Monday afternoon. His 40-year-old wife was found in serious condition and evacuated to Barzilai Hospital.

A second woman, unconscious and badly injured, was found in the same building and evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in critical but stable condition.  Magen David Adom paramedic Eyal Chen said, “After the rocket landed, we searched the area, the fire department broke into one apartment which was locked and there we found a 60-year-old woman, unconscious with blast wounds and multiple injuries.”

Medics also evacuated a 19-year-old soldier to Soroka Hospital in Beersheva earlier Monday. He is listed in serious condition after a Kornet anti-tank missile struck a bus in the Sha’ar Hanegev region near where he was standing. That attack preceded the rocket onslaught.

Some 85-100 people were taken to hospital over the course of the night and into Tuesday morning, most lightly injured or suffering from shock. At least one is listed in moderate condition.

As of 7 a.m Tuesday morning, Gaza terrorists fired between 300-400 rockets at Israel since Monday afternoon.

Sites linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad have declared that the terrorist groups will expand the range of rocket fire to Israel’s major cities including Tel Aviv if the Israeli Defense Forces’ bombardments do not stop.

Government meets

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, and Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, together with senior members of the security echelon met last night and announced that they reached “operational decisions.”

Netanyahu, together with his Security Cabinet, moved up a meeting scheduled for later this afternoon to 9:00 a.m. this morning.

The IDF said Tuesday morning that it had struck around 150 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets, including military compounds, weapons manufacturing sites and rocket launching sites throughout the Gaza Strip.

The targets hit included at least four multi-story buildings used by Hamas, including a building housing Hamas’ military intelligence offices.

Israeli military vehicles, including tanks, are gathering outside the Gaza border, laying the possibility for an extensive ground incursion by the IDF.

TPS contributed to this report.