The latest round of fighting between Israeli and Gaza terrorists claimed its first Israeli casualty on Thursday night, when one person was killed and five others wounded when a rocket fired from Gaza struck an apartment building in downtown Rehovot.
The deadly attack, along with several other rocket attacks in southern Israel, prompted combative statements from Israeli officials and quashed the prospect of an imminent ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad after three days of fighting.
The Rehovot attack was one of several near-simultaneous attacks in central and southern Israel that managed to penetrate the Iron Dome missile defense system, which has a 95 percent interception rate in 2017. More than 800 rockets have been fired at Israel since Wednesday. Around 600 of them crossed the border in the afternoon.
At 9 p.m., renewed rocket fire was directed at central Israel with no reports of casualties or damage.
Receive the Daily Times of Israel by email and never miss our top stories
With your registration you agree to the conditions
The email address is invalid or missing
Please try again. The email address is invalid or missing
Please try again.
The Rehovot victim was not immediately identified, but police said paramedics were forced to declare his death almost immediately after arriving at the scene. He was apparently not in a protected area when the missile struck, although alarm sirens sounded around the city before the attack.
Home Front Command chief Rafi Milo, who subsequently visited the scene, said the room was being used as storage. “This shows how important it is to follow orders from Home Front Command,” he said.
The Iron Dome intercepts rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, May 11, 2023. (JACK GUEZ/AFP)
A projectile fell in the Sdot Negev regional council, injuring an 82-year-old woman who was hit by shrapnel. According to the Magen David Adom rescue service, the rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in front of a house in the community. A 90-year-old man was evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba after suffering an anxiety attack.
A foreign farm worker was moderately injured by shrapnel in the Eshkol regional council, local authorities said. MDA said the man, in his 30s, was taken to Soroka Medical Center for further treatment.
A house in Sderot after being hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on May 11, 2023. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)
Three more rockets fell in the southern town of Sderot, one hitting a public building. However, there were no reports of injuries.
Shrapnel from another rocket hit the courtyard of a house in Moshav Ge’a, north of the Gaza Strip. There were no reports of injuries.
Police and rescue workers at the scene where a rocket fired from Gaza hit and damaged a house in Rehovot on May 11, 2023. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
Of the five people injured in the Rehovot rocket attack, four were in moderate condition and one suffered minor injuries.
Shay Cohen, who was injured in Rehovot, told public broadcaster Kan that after the attack he joined others and rescued a family trapped in their home inside the building.
Shay Cohen, injured when a rocket from Gaza hit his home in Rehovot in a deadly attack, May 11, 2023 (Screenshot by Kan TV)
“We rescued an elderly woman, a man in his 40s and a child around the age of two or three and it was a miracle they weren’t hurt,” he said, adding that the now damaged home ” is dangerous, nothing remains.”
Chen Kariti, an employee of Rehovot Municipality, told Kan what it was like to enter the building shortly after the rocket hit: “I saw things I wouldn’t wish on anyone – great chaos, smoke, panic, screams from every house. I saw a bunch of people, I didn’t know who was dead and who was alive. I was acutely scared and felt like I couldn’t help them.”
Police and rescue workers near a building hit by a rocket fired from Gaza, in Rehovot, May 11, 2023. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
The ongoing bloodshed has killed 30 Palestinians and injured at least 93 others. It was the worst fighting between Israel and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza in months, killing at least 10 civilians, mostly women and children. Some of the civilians were killed in Israeli attacks, while others were believed to have died as a result of failed Palestinian rocket launches.
“Meet fire with fire”
After the recent bombing, Israel indicated that a ceasefire was not imminent. A senior official accused Islamic Jihad of torpedoing the ceasefire talks and said Israel will “fight fire with fire”.
“In the last day, despite Egypt’s efforts to bring about a ceasefire, Islamic Jihad fired a barrage at Israel. In response, a fourth significant senior Islamic Jihad official was targeted and the organization continued to suffer serious damage,” the senior official said.
The official said Israel will respond harshly to sustained rocket fire.
“If the shooting at Israel continues, the attacks on Gaza will continue, including the continuation of targeted attacks, which continue to exact heavy prices for Islamic Jihad,” he said. “Fire will answer fire.”
On Thursday afternoon, the IDF said it had encountered an Islamic Jihad attack tunnel dug up to the Israeli security barrier to the Gaza Strip.
Smoke rises over buildings after IDF air strikes on the southern Gaza Strip on May 11, 2023. (Atia Mohammed/Flash90)
The IDF said the tunnel was built on the orders of Khaled Mansour, a former commander of the terror group in the southern Gaza Strip who was killed in an Israeli attack last August.
The mujahideen brigades — a relatively small armed faction in Gaza and somewhat allied with the coastal enclave’s rulers Hamas — said two of their members were killed in an Israeli airstrike near Gaza’s Shuja’iyya neighborhood been.
The terrorist group said the two members were involved in launching rockets into Israel when they were attacked.
The Hamas-led Health Ministry said two others were injured in the attack.
Another Islamic Jihad commander was killed
A senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad member was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza early Thursday afternoon, dealing another blow to the group in the latest round of hostilities and further dampening hopes of a ceasefire.
The airstrike in the southern Gaza town of Bani Suheila near Khan Younis killed Ahmad Abu Deka, deputy commander of Islamic Jihad’s missile forces, the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security agency said in a statement.
Abu Deka was the deputy to Ali Ghali, the head of Islamic Jihad’s missile forces, who was killed in a separate Israeli attack early Thursday morning.
The IDF said Abu Deka “played an important role in leading and executing the rocket attacks on Israel” over the past day.
The Hamas-led Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said four others were wounded in addition to Abu Deka in the Israeli airstrike. Palestinian Islamic Jihad also confirmed the death of Abu Deka, saying he was killed in a “cowardly Zionist assassination attempt”.
Speaking to reporters after the recent airstrike, IDF Southern Command chief Major General Eliezer Toledano said the military would continue to carry out targeted killings of Islamic Jihad members.
Operation Shield and Arrow, as it’s known in the military, began early Tuesday with the killing of three top Islamic Jihad commanders following rocket fire from Gaza earlier in the month.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning against Islamic Jihad on Thursday afternoon.
“This morning we targeted the commander of the Islamic Jihad missile complex in Gaza. Now…we also targeted his deputy,” Netanyahu said during a visit to a military base hosting the David’s Sling air defense system.
“I have already said: anyone who harms us will have his blood on his head, including anyone who replaces him,” Netanyahu said.
This photo released by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (left) shows Ali Ghali, commander of the terrorist group’s missile forces. Ghali was killed in an Israeli attack on a building (right) in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis on May 11, 2023. (Courtesy; SAID KHATIB/AFP)
The terrorist group responded to the initial attacks in Gaza by firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli communities, causing material damage throughout southern Israel.
As of Thursday evening, the IDF said Palestinians in Gaza had fired 803 rockets and mortar shells at Israel. According to the military, at least 620 of the projectiles crossed the border while 152 missed in Gaza – some of them believed to have killed four Palestinians.
According to the IDF, air defense systems — Iron Dome and the medium-range missile David’s Sling — intercepted 179 of the missiles, a 95 percent interception rate for projectiles headed for populated areas, while a handful landed in urban areas and did damage.
The Middle East Media Research Institute on Thursday released a video shared by the PIJ showing its missile forces firing on Israel.
The military also said it carried out strikes against 191 Islamic Jihad targets during the campaign.
Plumes of smoke are seen as rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel on May 11, 2023. (Atia Mohammed/Flash90)
More than 40 people sought treatment for wounds they sustained while trying to find shelter or for acute fear of nearby impacts.
Security restrictions remained in place in southern Israel, including rules mandating the closure of schools within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of Gaza and limiting outdoor gatherings to no more than 10 people.
Israeli officials insist they confine the fight to Islamic Jihad and not the larger and better-armed Hamas terrorist group that dominates the Gaza Strip.