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Gaza rocket strikes Israeli synagogue and school in Sderot

A rocket from Gaza struck a yeshiva in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, a frequent target of attacks. There were no injuries. 

By World Israel News and AP

Palestinian terrorists fired a rocket from Gaza into southern Israel late Thursday, striking a Chabad building housing a synagogue and school but causing no injuries, Israeli authorities said.

The rockets – fired from the town of Beit Hanoun, according to Channel 13 – set the stage for a likely Israeli reprisal and raised the possibility of a new round of fighting, weeks after a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Israeli police said the rocket struck a building in the Israeli border town of Sderot, a frequent target of rocket fire.

The ceasefire, reached in early May, has begun to unravel in recent days. Overnight on Wednesday, Israeli fighter jets struck an underground terrorist infrastructure belonging to Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip. The attack was in response to rocket fire from Gaza earlier that night, the IDF reported.

“The IDF will continue to act against attempts to harm Israeli civilians and considers the terrorist organization Hamas responsible for everything that is happening in and out of the Gaza Strip,” the Army spokesperson’s office said in a statement.

“Netanyahu is only strong with words,” Benny Gantz, former IDF Chief of Staff head of Blue and White, the main opposition party, said in a statement Thursday morning, the Hebrew-language daily Hamodia reported. “The continued rocket fire by Hamas is evidence that we have lost our deterrence.”

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“Only exacting an immediate heavy price from Hamas will clarify that Israel doesn’t only talk, but also uses force,” Gantz said.

‘This situation cannot continue. As I have said in the past, only a military operation will bring quiet to our area,” Sderot Mayor Alon Davidi stated in response to the rocket attack, TPS reported.

“[Hamas leaders Ismail] Haniyeh and [Yahya] Sinwar are ‘sons of death’ and we should hit them first,” he continued. “The dear residents of Sderot and the Gaza perimeter deserve to raise their children in peace and quiet, as are all residents of the country.

“We will continue to develop the city and be blessed with thousands of new families. Terrorism will not defeat us.”

“Dear residents of the south, allow me to express my deep sorrow for the untimely passing of your sense of security. This is precisely why I resigned as Defense Minister. We must bury the policy of ‘managing the conflict’ and revive Israel’s deterrence,” said Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Liberman, who had served as defense minister under the Netanyahu-led Likud government, according to Hamodia.