Israel, Gaza Strip and Lebanon: “No interest in escalation”

Rocket attacks on Israel, followed by bombing of targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip – what are the consequences of the night shelling? “We are not interested in an escalation,” Israel’s military said. But the violence continued.

They could return to their everyday lives: As a spokesman for the Israeli army said early in the morning, residents of the Israeli towns around the Gaza Strip could leave their shelters again. First sign that Israel’s armed forces do not expect a continuation of Hamas rocket fire from the Palestinian coast for the time being.

During the night, the Israeli Air Force claims to have destroyed Hamas weapons factories and tunnels. Palestinian militants then fired 23 missiles at Israel early in the morning. The Israeli army announced in the morning that eight missiles had been destroyed by the Iron Dome air defense system.

Rocket hits apartment

In Sderot, the small town next to the Gaza Strip, a rocket pierced a woman’s apartment. “We expected the night to be restless,” Sheri Vasana said on Israeli army radio. She stayed in the shelter with her nine-month-old daughter, her husband stayed in the living room.

“Around five o’clock rockets were launched, many of which were intercepted above us. We could hear that very well. Then there was a very loud bang and our electricity went out. When my husband went out he could not only smell the fire, but also saw a hole in our roof.”

“Everything was destroyed”

In the morning, residents in the Gaza Strip also assessed the damage caused by the nightly Israeli air raids: the bombing of Hamas tunnels left behind, among other things, large craters that formed in the vicinity of residential buildings.

He gathered with his wife and two-year-old daughter for suhur, the breakfast before dawn in Ramadan, Majdi Abu Nemeh told Reuters news agency. “Then we heard three, four huge explosions, not the normal ones. I grabbed my daughter and ran.”

He ignored everyone else. “I was just holding my two-year-old daughter, who started crying. The children all started crying and my daughter passed out. I looked around, everything was destroyed.” His car was also destroyed.

Lebanon: No further operations

It is reported from Lebanon that there have been no further operations since the Israeli airstrike at 4 a.m. on buildings on an agricultural area. From this point, more than 30 rockets were fired into northern Israel yesterday afternoon.

“We are not interested in an escalation,” said an Israeli army spokesman earlier this morning. Israel’s government holds the Islamist Hamas, which violently seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, responsible for yesterday’s rocket attacks from Lebanon. However, Hamas could not have carried out this attack without the consent of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah.

Terrorist attack on three women

At noon there was a terrorist attack on three Israeli women on a country road around 30 kilometers east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank: the perpetrators fired on the three women’s vehicle. This caused a serious accident, two women died at the scene of the accident, and the third car occupant was rescued with serious injuries.