Israeli air force brings the thunder: Numerous terror targets reduced to rubble

The IDF targeted Islamic Jihad sites in the Gaza Strip as the terror group launched rockets at Israel. 

By World Israel News Staff

IDF fighter jets and aircraft struck a number of terror targets of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. Among the sites were a training compound and underground weapons manufacturing and storage sites.

One of the training compounds was used by the Islamic Jihad’s naval commando unit. A shaft of an offensive terror tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip and a tunnel digging site in the central Gaza Strip were also hit.

The Israeli Army estimates that terrorists have launched 150 rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip since Tuesday morning when news of the IDF’s assassination of a senior Islamic Jihad leader broke. Sixty have been intercepted by the IDF.

The IDF said it views the “continued rocket fire from the Gaza Strip at Israel and its civilians severely and is prepared to continue defending Israeli civilians, and to operate as necessary.”

A million Israeli students remain at home as Israel’s Home Front Command canceled school in numerous areas of the country. The Home Front also cautioned workers from Israel’s south to Tel Aviv to stay near shelters.

In one successful effort to eliminate an immediate threat, the Israeli Air Force struck two Islamic Jihad terrorists earlier Tuesday morning just as they were about to launch rockets into Israel. Ynet reports that Palestinians reports say one of them was killed. The two were on a motorcycle in the northern Gaza Strip.

Israel expects the violence to last a few days after it killed Bahu Abu Al Ata in Gaza City at approximately 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ziad al Nakhaleh, based in Lebanon, said in response to the assassination: “We are going to war.”

In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Islamic Jihad leader was a central terror figure, responsible for the launching of  “hundreds of rockets” into Israel, and was a “ticking time-bomb.”

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, head of the opposition, supported the prime minister’s decision to carry out the targeted killing.