WarSclerotic

The Israeli military sent an additional tank brigade to the Gaza border on Sunday and prepared for fighting in the days to come after over 450 rockets and mortar shells were fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip over the course of 24 hours this weekend, killing an Israeli man and injuring several others.

In response to the attacks, the Israel Defense Forces said it bombed over 220 military targets in the Strip, causing considerable damage to terror groups’ facilities, but relatively few casualties in the densely populated coastal enclave.

The fighting began shortly after 9:30 a.m. Saturday, continuing into Sunday morning with a few hours-long periods of calm overnight.

The exchanges of Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes appeared to slow on Sunday morning, but both sides said they would step up their retaliations if the other side’s attacks persisted.

Smoke billows above buildings in Gaza City during an Israeli airstrike on the Palestinian enclave in response to rocket fire from the Strip on May 5, 2019. (MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)

An IDF spokeswoman said the military sent its 7th Armored Brigade southward “so that there would be a force available in the Gaza Division in case there is a need for it.”

Another military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, said the IDF anticipated the fighting to continue for several more days.

The intense violence that engulfed the region over the weekend began on Friday evening, when a sniper in Gaza shot at two soldiers along the border, injuring them, and the military responded with a strike on a Hamas position that killed several members of the Islamist terror group.

The exchange of fire followed several weeks of relative calm between Israel and Gaza amid an unofficial armistice, which appeared to be breaking down as terrorists in the Strip stepped up their violent activities along the border in the days preceding the outbreak of fighting. Gaza terror groups said their actions were retaliation for Israel not abiding by the ceasefire agreement by halting the transfer of Qatari money into Gaza — a charge Jerusalem denied, blaming the delay on Qatar and the United Nations.

According to the IDF, approximately 70 percent of the more than 450 rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel struck open fields, where they caused neither injuries nor damage. Over 150 projectiles that were heading toward populated areas were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, the army said.

Moshe Agadi, 58, who was killed when a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip scored a direct hit on his home in Ashkelon in southern Israel early on May 5, 2019 (courtesy)

Despite what the military said was excellent performance by the Iron Dome, several projectiles directly struck houses and apartments or landed just outside them, including one that hit the courtyard of the home of Moshe Agadi, 58, a father of four, who was declared dead after being rushed to Ashkelon’s Barzilai hospital with shrapnel wounds at around 2:30 a.m. Sunday.

At least two rockets landed outside schools in southern Israel, which were empty due to the weekend, damaging the buildings.

Agadi appeared to be the first Israeli fatality from Gazan rocket attacks since 2014’s war with terrorists based in the Strip. A Palestinian man working in Israel was killed in a rocket strike in Ashkelon in November.

The military said the vast majority of the projectiles fired from Gaza were launched by Hamas, which rules Gaza, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second-most-powerful terror group in the Strip. A smaller number were fired by other groups in Gaza.

The military said on Sunday that it had conducted some 220 retaliatory raids against targets connected to Hamas and the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad since Saturday and was continuing to do so on Sunday morning.

An explosion is seen among buildings during an Israeli airstike on Gaza City in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave on May 4, 2019. (Mahmud Hams / AFP)

At least four Palestinian men in their 20s were reported killed in the Israeli strikes, all of whom were said to have been part of rocket launching teams.

Gazan authorities also blamed the deaths of a mother and her baby on Israel, but the IDF denied responsibility and said they were the result of a failed rocket launch.

“Based on our intelligence, we can confirm that they were killed by an accidental use of Hamas weaponry,” IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said Sunday, referring to their deaths as “unfortunate.”

Conricus said it was “likely not the last case” of Palestinians blaming Israel for deaths that were actually caused by Hamas.

The Israel Defense Forces said its strikes targeted an Islamic Jihad cross-border attack tunnel, the entry points to several other tunnels, a Hamas underground rocket production facility, weapons caches, military bases, observation posts, a cement factory used to produce the linings of tunnels and underground bunkers, and several multi-story buildings used by terror groups in the Strip.

On Sunday morning, the military released footage of what it said was its strike on the Hamas underground rocket factory. In the video, the initial bombing can be seen followed by what appear to be secondary explosions caused by the munitions in the facility.

The military said it also bombed several boats belonging to the naval commando units of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

“As part of the attack, a military base was hit, which had been used to house members of the Hamas naval commando unit and a military structure in the home of the commander of the naval commando unit in the city of Khan Younis, which housed tools for excavating military tunnels,” the army said.

A home in the Gazan city of Rafah belonging to a Hamas leader where the IDF says munitions were stored, which was bombed in response to rocket attacks from the Strip on May 5, 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)

In the strikes, the Israeli Air Force bombed several ostensibly civilian structures, including the homes of terrorist leaders where munitions were being stored in the cities of Khan Yonis, Rafah and the al-Shati refugee camp, as well as a mosque in al-Shati that the IDF says was used as a headquarters by the Islamic Jihad.

The Israeli military also flattened a building housing the offices of the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, prompting outcry from Ankara. The IDF said the eight-story building was used by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad to conduct terrorist activities.

Another multi-story building in Rimal, which the IDF said housed Hamas’s military intelligence and domestic security service, was also destroyed in the strikes.

The Israeli army said it was prepared to continue conducting raids if the attacks from Gaza continued. Terror groups in the enclave made similar threats, saying they would attack deeper into Israel if the IDF continued its strikes.

Residents inspect the damage to a building in Gaza City, May 4, 2019. (AP/Adel Hana)

The United States said in a statement it backed Israel’s right to self-defense.

“The United States strongly condemns the ongoing barrage of rocket attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Gaza upon innocent civilians and their communities across Israel. We call on those responsible for the violence to cease this aggression immediately,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

The European Union’s ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, sharply criticized the rocket attacks on Twitter, saying “firing indiscriminately against civilians (is) unacceptable.”

COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, also said it was closing the fishing zone off Gaza’s coast altogether and sealing Israel’s two land crossings — Kerem Shalom and Erez — with the coastal enclave.

The crossings are used by Palestinian medical patients to enter and exit the territory, and provide the main entry for cargo into the blockaded territory.

Diesel fuel and gasoline were allowed into Gaza through Kerem Shalom on Sunday despite the closure in order to “prevent the civilian-humanitarian deterioration of the Strip,” an Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The military wing of the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad terror group releases video threatening rocket attacks on the nuclear reactor in Dimona and other sensitive sites in Israel, May 4 2019 (Screen grab)

Hamas in a statement said it was “prepared to respond to Israel’s crimes” and vowed to stop it from “spilling the blood of our people.” Islamic Jihad threatened to disrupt the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, due to take place in Tel Aviv May 14-18, as well as issuing a videothreatening the Dimona nuclear facility, Ben Gurion Airport and other sensitive sites in Israel.

The UN’s Mideast envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, said the United Nations was working with Egypt to restore calm and called on all sides to “de-escalate” and restore recent understandings.

“Those who seek to destroy them will bear responsibility for a conflict that will have grave consequences for all,” he said in a statement.

Palestinianss clash with Israeli troops during protests at the Israel-Gaza border, on May 3, 2019 (Hassan Jedi/Flash90)

Following heavy fighting in early April, Israel agreed to ease its blockade on Gaza in exchange for a halt to rocket fire. This included expanding a fishing zone off Gaza’s coast, increasing imports into Gaza and allowing the Gulf state of Qatar to deliver aid to cash-strapped Gaza.

That agreement appeared to be under stress in recent days, with Palestinians launching arson balloons and rockets into Israel and Israeli warplanes striking Hamas targets. Hamas has said the incendiary balloons were a message to Israel not to hold up the transfer of millions of dollars in Qatari aid funds to the cash-strapped Hamas government in Gaza.

Minister Tzachi Hanegbi blamed the delay on Qatar and the United Nations.

On Thursday, a Hamas delegation led by the group’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on a truce with Israel, Hamas officials said.

Israel and Egypt have maintained a crippling blockade on Gaza since Hamas, which seeks to destroy Israel, seized control of the territory in 2007. Jerusalem says it is necessary to prevent terror groups from rearming and becoming an even greater menace.

The sides are bitter enemies and have fought three wars along with numerous smaller flareups of violence.

Times of Israel staff and agencies contributed to this report.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday instructed the army “to deal a hard blow” to terror groups in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian territory, according to a defense official quoted by Hebrew-language media.

The Israel Defense Forces on Saturday launched a series of strikes on the Gaza Strip from both land and air, as around 200 rockets were fired toward Israel from the Palestinian enclave. The army said dozens of the projectiles were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.

A senior Israeli official told Channel 13 news that there is growing understanding there will not be an immediate return to calm on the southern border, with an expectation of “at least two to three days of fighting.”

The comments came after Netanyahu, who is also defense minister, met with top security officials for talks on the flare-up in the south.

Objects are scattered in a house that was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in the southern Israeli village of Netiv Ha’asara, on May 4, 2019. (Jack Guez/AFP)

The security cabinet will meet Sunday to discuss the latest violence in Gaza, the Prime Minister’s Office said earlier on Saturday.

Two people were injured Saturday, one seriously — an 80-year-old woman in Kiryat Gat — and one moderately, as the army said around 200 rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza.

The army said fighter jets and tanks struck 70 “terror targets” in the Strip belonging to the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups. These included a tunnel dug by Islamic Jihad that crosses the border into Israel.

IDF says it destroyed an attack tunnel crossing under the border from Gaza to Israel, May 4 2019 (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)

The army has warned it will expand strikes in the Gaza Strip if rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave continues.

IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis said Hamas, the terror group that rules Gaza, is working in cooperation with Islamic Jihad and that the IDF is striking targets linked to both terror organizations

He added that the army believes five to six members of the group have been killed since Friday when the IDF struck a Hamas post on the border in response to a sniper attack on Israeli troops.

The army said it targeted several Hamas compounds in Gaza City used for training and for weapons production. It said one of the sites was used by the organization’s naval force. It also struck several Islamic Jihad compounds throughout the Strip, and a number of rocket launchers and outposts near the border.

The strikes came after IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi held talks with Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman, Southern Command chief Herzi Halevi and other top brass.

Israel also announced the closure of the Erez and Kerem Shalom crossings between Gaza and Israel, as well as the fishing zone off the coast of the Palestinian enclave.

Fishing boats return to the port in Gaza City on May 4, 2019, after Israel closed the fishing zone off the Palestinian enclave in response to rocket fire. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip have warned they will increase attacks on Israel if the IDF continues to carry out strikes in response to rocket fire from the coastal enclave.

“We warn the enemy that our response will be even more severe and widespread in the event that it expands its aggression. We will remain the shield of our people and our land,” the so-called joint operations room said in a statement.

In light of the ongoing attacks, the IDF’s Home Front Command issued instructions for residents in affected areas to remain near protected spaces. It also limited public gatherings to 300 people in enclosed spaces only and halted agricultural work. Many municipalities opened public shelters. Beaches and national parks in the south were closed, and sporting events canceled.

The instructions applied to communities in the border area near Gaza, the central Negev, Lachish region and southern Shfela plain.

The rocket attacks came a day after two soldiers were shot and injured while on patrol near the border in southern Gaza. One soldier was moderately wounded in the attack and a female soldier was lightly hurt, the IDF said.

In response to the shooting, an IDF aircraft attacked a nearby Hamas post, the army said. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said two people were killed in the strike and two others were wounded.

Smoke rises from an explosion caused by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Saturday, May 4, 2019 (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

On Thursday, a Hamas delegation led by the group’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on a truce with Israel, Hamas officials said.

That agreement appeared under stress in recent days, with Palestinians launching arson balloons and rockets into Israel and Israeli warplanes striking Hamas targets.

Hamas has said the incendiary balloons were a message to Israel not to hold up the transfer of millions of dollars in Qatari aid funds to the cash-strapped Hamas government in Gaza.

Israel and Egypt have maintained a crippling blockade on Gaza since Hamas, which seeks to destroy Israel, seized control of the territory in 2007. Jerusalem says it is necessary to prevent terror groups from rearming and becoming an even greater menace.

The sides are bitter enemies and have fought three wars and engaged in numerous smaller flare-ups of violence.

Tensions have been rising in recent days amid allegations from Hamas that Israel has been delaying implementation of last month’s ceasefire understandings.

Agencies contributed to this report.

Washington firmly backed Israel and condemned Palestinian terror groups Saturday after a heavy round of fighting broke out in the restive Gaza region, with hundreds of rockets shot at the Jewish state leading to massive retaliatory airstrikes.

“The United States strongly condemns the ongoing barrage of rocket attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Gaza upon innocent civilians and their communities across Israel. We call on those responsible for the violence to cease this aggression immediately,” State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

“We stand with Israel and fully support its right to self defense against these abhorrent attacks,” she added.

Over 250 rockets were shot at Israel by Hamas and Islamic Jihad Sunday, the most serious round of violence in months. A man in his 60s was killed in the Israeli city of Ashkelon and three more Israelis were injured, including an 80-year-old women seriously hurt in Kiryat Gat.

A woman looks at the damage caused by a rocket fired from Gaza that hit a house in a community in Israel near the border with Gaza, Saturday, May 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

Six Palestinians were reported killed, including four fighters. A mother and her year-old baby were also killed, but Israel insisted it was not responsible and that the two were killed by a failed rocket launch.

An explosion caused by an Israeli airstrike on a building in Gaza City, Saturday, May 4, 2019. (AP/Khalil Hamra)

US Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt also condemned Hamas and backed Israel on Twitter.

“Hamas & PIJ have engaged in yet another deplorable act of terrorism, indiscriminately firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilian communities. The U.S. stands firmly in support of Israel’s right to self-defense and we call on the international community to do the same,” he tweeted.

He added that the Gazan groups were hurting Palestinians.

The European Union’s ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, sharply criticized the rocket attacks on Twitter, saying “firing indiscriminately against civilians (is) unacceptable.”

The UN’s Mideast envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, said the United Nations was working with Egypt to restore calm and called on all sides to “de-escalate” and restore recent understandings.

“Those who seek to destroy them will bear responsibility for a conflict that will have grave consequences for all,” he said in a statement.

The flare-up comes as the US is preparing to roll out its Israeli-Palestinian peace plan next month.

The proposal is thought include major economic improvements to Gaza as part of an international effort to rehabilitate the beleaguered enclave, currently ruled by the Hamas terror group.

Greenblatt, who has frequently sparred with Palestinian officials on social media, has been a strident critic of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

US President Donald Trump’s peace envoy Jason Greenblatt (L) tours the area around the Gaza Strip with Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories Yoav ‘Poly’ Mordechai on August 30, 2017. (COGAT Spokesperson’s Office)

Israel and Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip have fought three wars since 2008 and fears remain of a fourth.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas brokered by Egypt and the United Nations had led to relative calm around Israel’s April 9 general election.

But the past week saw a gradual uptick in violence.

With the ceasefire at risk, a Hamas delegation led by its Gaza head Yahya Sinwar went to Cairo on Thursday for talks with Egyptian officials.

Israel and Egypt have maintained a crippling blockade on Gaza since Hamas, which seeks to destroy Israel, seized control of the territory in 2007. Jerusalem says it is necessary to prevent terror groups from rearming and becoming an even greater menace.

Agencies contributed to this report.

A man was killed when a rocket slammed into his home in southern Israel early Sunday morning, as Gazan terrorists pummeled Israeli towns with projectiles and Israel responded with hundreds of airstrikes over the weekend.

The man, in his 60s, was declared dead after being rushed to Ashkelon’s Barzilai hospital with shrapnel wounds after the rocket hit his home in the city at around 2:30 a.m. Sunday.

The man was not immediately identified but appeared to be the first Israeli fatality from Gazan rocket attacks since 2014’s war with terrorists based in the Strip.

A Palestinian man working in Israel was killed in a rocket strike in Ashkelon in November.

The killing came as intense fighting engulfed the region over the weekend, sharply intensifying tensions after several months of relative calm between Israel and the Strip.

In a familiar scene, air raid sirens wailed across southern Israel throughout Saturday and into Sunday as barrages of rockets were repeatedly fired. Retaliatory airstrikes caused large explosions to thunder across Gaza, as plumes of smoke rose into the air. Outgoing Palestinian rockets left long trails of smoke behind them and puffs of smoke bloomed overhead as dozens of rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Israeli air defense system Iron Dome takes out rockets fired from Gaza near Sderot, Israel, Saturday, May 4, 2019. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

Three Israelis were injured Saturday, including an 80-year-old woman seriously hurt from rocket shrapnel in Kiryat Gat.

According to the IDF Saturday, some 70 percent of the incoming rockets and mortar shells struck open fields, where they caused neither injury nor damage. Of the remaining 30 percent, which were heading toward populated areas, most were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.

Several directly struck homes or landed just outside them. At least two rockets landed in the courtyards of schools in southern Israel, which were empty due to the weekend, causing damage to the buildings.

The rocket fire continued after midnight, keeping Israelis in the affected areas pinned close to rocket shelters, and leading authorities to cancel school Sunday throughout the region. Aside from Ashkelon, a rocket strike was also reported in Sderot after 2 a.m.

A home in southern Israel’s Shaar Hanegev Regional Council damaged by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip is seen on May 4, 2019. (Shaar Hanegev Regional Council)

In response to the strikes, Israel hit at least 120 targets in Gaza on Saturday, including a cross-border attack tunnel, an underground rocket factory and a six-story building used by Hamas’s military intelligence, the army said.

Palestinians reported continuing strikes overnight and into Sunday morning.

At least two Palestinians were reported killed in the Israeli strikes, both of whom were said to have been part of rocket launching teams.

Gazan authorities also blamed the deaths of a mother and her baby on Israel, but the IDF denied responsibility and said it was likely the result of a failed rocket launch.

The Israeli military also flattened a building housing the offices of the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency, prompting outcries of condemnation from Ankara. The IDF said the eight-story building was used by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups to conduct terrorist activities.

The Israeli army said it was prepared to continue conducting airstrikes if the attacks from Gaza continued. Israeli military officials told reporters that the fighting could continue for several days. Terror groups in the enclave made similar threats, saying they would attack deeper into Israel if the IDF continued its strikes.

Residents inspect the damage to a building in Gaza City, May 4, 2019. (AP/Adel Hana)

The US said in a statement it backed Israel’s right to self-defense.

“The United States strongly condemns the ongoing barrage of rocket attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Gaza upon innocent civilians and their communities across Israel. We call on those responsible for the violence to cease this aggression immediately,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

The European Union’s ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, sharply criticized the rocket attacks on Twitter, saying “firing indiscriminately against civilians (is) unacceptable.”

The fresh exchange — one of the larger battles of the past year — began on Friday evening when Palestinians in the Strip shot two soldiers on patrol near the border in southern Gaza.

In response, the Israeli military bombed a Hamas post, killing two of the terror group’s operatives.

Shortly after 9:30 on Saturday morning, terror groups in the Strip began launching rockets and mortar shells at Israel.

The military launched a series of reprisal strikes from air and land, hitting targets throughout the coastal enclave connected to Hamas, the islamist group that rules Gaza, and the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization.

COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, also said it was closing the fishing zone off Gaza’s coast altogether and sealing Israel’s two land crossings with Gaza.

The crossings are used by Palestinian medical patients to enter and exit the territory, and provide the main entry for cargo into the blockaded territory.

An Israeli soldier at the scene where a house was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on May 4, 2019 (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Hamas in a statement said it was “prepared to respond to Israel’s crimes” and vowed to stop it from “spilling the blood of our people.” Gaza’s second-largest terror group, Islamic Jihad, threatened to disrupt the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, due to take place in Tel Aviv May 14-18, as well as issuing a video threatening the Dimona nuclear facility, Ben Gurion Airport and other sensitive sites in Israel.

The UN’s Mideast envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, said the United Nations was working with Egypt to restore calm and called on all sides to “de-escalate” and restore recent understandings.

“Those who seek to destroy them will bear responsibility for a conflict that will have grave consequences for all,” he said in a statement.

Palestinianss clash with Israeli troops during protests at the Israel-Gaza border, on May 3, 2019 (Hassan Jedi/Flash90)

Following heavy fighting in early April, Israel agreed to ease its blockade on Gaza in exchange for a halt to rocket fire. This included expanding a fishing zone off Gaza’s coast, increasing imports into Gaza and allowing the Gulf state of Qatar to deliver aid to cash-strapped Gaza.

That agreement appeared to be under stress in recent days, with Palestinians launching arson balloons and rockets into Israel and Israeli warplanes striking Hamas targets. Hamas has said the incendiary balloons were a message to Israel not to hold up the transfer of millions of dollars in Qatari aid funds to the cash-strapped Hamas government in Gaza.

On Thursday, a Hamas delegation led by the group’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on a truce with Israel, Hamas officials said.

Israel and Egypt have maintained a crippling blockade on Gaza since Hamas, which seeks to destroy Israel, seized control of the territory in 2007. Jerusalem says it is necessary to prevent terror groups from rearming and becoming an even greater menace.

The sides are bitter enemies and have fought three wars and engaged in numerous smaller flare-ups of violence.

Judah Ari Gross and Agencies contributed to this report.