Gaza rockets fired at Israel may have been set off by lightning

Israel responded to two rockets fired into Israel on Sunday night.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

Gaza terrorists fired two rockets from the Strip towards the coast near the city of Ashdod on Sunday night. Or at least, that was the initial belief, as IDF fighter jets zeroed in on terror targets in retaliation, blowing up several Hamas sites, including tunnel operations.

“The IDF views any terror activity against Israel with great severity and is ready to continue operating as necessary against attempts to harm Israeli civilians or sovereignty,” the military said in a statement.

“The Hamas terror organization is responsible for all events transpiring in the Gaza Strip and emanating from it, and will bear the consequences for terror activity against Israeli civilians,” it added.

But the terror group may not have launched the missiles, at least not on purpose. Later reports say that the Gaza rockets may have been set off by a technical malfunction caused by lightning. The possibility was floated after a video was obtained from a security camera facing the northern Gaza Strip, which captured a lightning storm seconds before the rockets launched.

Such events have occurred in the past.

Israel is under constant threat from Hamas terrorists so the assumption that the Gaza rockets were fired intentionally is understandable. On Wednesday, shots were fired at two engineering vehicles in separate incidents adjacent to the security fence in the Gaza Strip.

In 2016, Israel began constructing a massive underground wall to prevent Hamas from building terror tunnels into Israel, which the group planned to use to carry out attacks and kidnap Israeli civilians and soldiers.

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