IDF strikes Syria and Gaza as both borders flare up
Soldier severely wounded by sniper fire; ISIS Grad rocket lands in Kinneret
The IDF shelled seven Hamas targets throughout the Gaza Strip with tank and artillery fire on Wednesday night, after a soldier was seriously wounded by sniper fire on the Gaza border near Kibbutz Kissufim.
The soldier was evacuated by helicopter to Beersheba’s Soroka hospital.
In the North, the IAF struck targets in Syria late Wednesday after two BM-21 “Grad” errant rockets launched by Islamic State as part of the internal fighting in Syria landed in Lake Kinneret.
“The Israel Air Force struck the rocket launcher from which the two rockets were fired and by artillery toward the area from which the rockets were fired,” the IDF said.
The IDF and Israel Police investigating said the rockets landed in Lake Kinneret after local residents said they saw an object fall into the water near Gofra Beach. There were no injuries or damage reported.
Incoming rocket sirens were sounded in the southern Golan Heights on Wednesday afternoon.
The projectiles were not
found by publication time.
The incident along the Gaza border occurred after some 20 Palestinian youth began violently demonstrating 400 meters from the border fence. When an IDF force arrived to disperse the youth, a sniper targeted the soldier.
While the IDF believes that the ambush was not carried out with Hamas’s approval, as per policy, it holds the terrorist group responsible for all events occurring in the Strip.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported four casualties and several injuries.
Hamas said “the scale of the Zionist escalation on Gaza and the deliberate targeting of the resisters reflect the intention of the occupation to kill, and proves that the leadership of the occupation is a bloody criminal [sic].”
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman convened a special security meeting with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and other senior IDF and defense establishment officials at the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv to discuss the unfolding security situation in the South.
Shortly after the IDF tank fire, incoming rocket sirens were activated in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, sending Israelis into bomb shelters. According to authorities, no projectiles were found to have struck Israeli territory.
The incident came four days after IDF soldier Staff Sgt. Aviv Levi was killed by Palestinian sniper fire in the same area along the Gaza border.
Described as the most serious incident along the border fence since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Levi was the first to be killed by a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip in four years. In response the IDF carried out massive retaliatory strikes against Hamas targets in the coastal enclave.
According to the IDF, more than 60 Hamas targets were struck in response, including three battalion headquarters. Other targets included weapons stores, combat equipment warehouses, training areas, observation posts, command and control rooms, a battalion commander’s office, and other infrastructures.
On Friday morning, Liberman warned that Hamas is pushing Israel into a Gaza war that will be larger in scope than Operation Protective Edge in 2014. •