JERUSALEM (JTA) – Following a rocket attack Wednesday on Beersheba from Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not tolerate the bombing of its citizens.
"I do not recommend that anyone test Israel’s determination," Netanyahu said Thursday during a joint Cabinet meeting with the Polish government. "We will not tolerate anyone bombing us. This is something that no country in the world would agree to and we will act accordingly."
At least two long-range Grad rockets struck Beersheba on Wednesday evening, one reportedly hitting an apartment building. No one was reported injured in the attack, the first to strike the southern Israeli city since the Gaza war in 2009. The area’s Code Red alert sounded in the seconds before the rockets hit. Israel’s military responded late Wednesday, striking several targets during what it termed an extensive operation in the Gaza Strip.
Wednesday’s attack on Beersheba came several hours after Israeli soldiers had shelled a group of Palestinians that the Israel Defense Forces said was planting explosives near the Gaza security fence in an attempt to attack Israeli patrols. An explosive device was detonated near an army patrol working near the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip earlier in the day.
Palestinian news services reported that 11 Gazans were injured in the shelling, including eight members of the terrorist group Islamic Jihad and three children. Six mortar shells fired from Gaza also landed in southern Israel on Wednesday afternoon, the IDF reported.
In the past two months, more than a dozen explosive devices were detonated along the security fence, according to the IDF Spokesman’s office.
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