WarSclerotic

Life in Israeli communities and towns near Gaza slowly returned to normal on Wednesday after a quiet night signaled that a tentative reported ceasefire was holding following two days of intense rocket attacks from the Hamas-ruled Strip.

Schools, higher education institutes and businesses were to reopen and farmers could again work their fields, many of them adjacent to Gaza. Train services south of Ashkelon also resumed.

There were no reports of rocket fire into Israel, or of Israeli strikes on Gaza, since Tuesday afternoon, when the reported ceasefire went into effect. Palestinians said the truce was brokered by Egypt.

Israel had still not confirmed the existence of a cease-fire, but the IDF Home Front Command on Tuesday night removed all restrictions on residents of southern Israel declaring a “return to normalcy.”

Nevertheless, the IDF still had reinforcements in place surrounding Gaza.

An IDF soldier jumps off a tank near the Israel-Gaza border, Tuesday, November 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

The UN Security Council met late Tuesday in New York, but no decisions were taken, with the Palestinian blaming the US for blocking any condemnation of Israel.

Kuwait, which represents Arab countries at the council, and Bolivia requested the meeting following the worst flareup in Gaza since the 2014 war between Hamas and Israel.

Addressing reporters after the 50-minute meeting, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour said the council was “paralyzed” and had “failed to shoulder its responsibility” to take action to end the violence.

“There is one country that is not allowing discussion at the council,” Mansour told reporters, in a reference to the United States, which has steadfastly supported Israel under US President Donald Trump.

There was no statement from the council on the crisis. Such statements are agreed by consensus by all 15 council members.

The calm was not welcomed by all, with many in Israel demanding that the government do more to end the rocket threat from Hamas.

In a statement to residents, the head of the Eshkol regional council Gadi Yarkoni said: “We’ve had a difficult two days. Two days which are a continuation of life in the shadow of terrorism and a pendulum swinging between emergency and normalcy for eight months straight.”

He said he expected Israeli leaders and the army to “give us true peace and true calm” which would allow the communities to thrive.

“We cannot accept the continued hopeless reality of life under the threat of terrorism that includes fires, balloons and rockets.”

Palestinians walk amidst rubble of a building that was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on November 13, 2018. (SAID KHATIB / AFP)

Earlier hundreds of people demonstrated at the entrance to the town of Sderot over Israel’s reported agreement for a ceasefire with Gaza’s Hamas terrorist rulers, after a 25-hour period that saw over 460 rockets fired at Israeli communities near the Palestinian enclave.

Protesters blocked roads and burning tires, with some chanting, “Bibi go home,” using a nickname for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Confrontations were reported between protesters and policemen.

According to Hadashot TV news, some southern residents planned further demonstrations and road blockages in Tel Aviv on Wednesday to protest the truce.

View image on Twitter

Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay expressed support for the protesters, saying it was a “justified” response to the government “forsaking” them.

He said the government had failed the south by “neglecting” the issue of Gaza since the 2014 war. “This is not the time for another fragile truce,” he said. “This is the time for a true diplomatic initiative in Gaza, that will lean on the recommendations of the security establishment.”

The scene inside an Ashkelon apartment where a man was killed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip which hit the building, November 13, 2018. (Times of Israel)

Hamas and other Gaza terror groups said Tuesday they had accepted an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire with Israel. Terms of the deal were not immediately known, and there was no immediate comment from Israel. But a senior Israeli diplomatic official appeared to confirm the reported armistice.

“Israel maintains its right to act. Requests from Hamas for a ceasefire came through four different mediators. Israel responded that the events on the ground will decide [if a ceasefire will go into effect],” the official said, on condition of anonymity.

According to the military, over 460 rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern Israel over the course of 25 hours on Monday and Tuesday. The Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted over 100 of them. Most of the rest landed in open fields, but dozens landed inside Israeli cities and towns, killing one person, injuring dozens more, and causing significant property damage.

In response to the rocket and mortar attacks, the Israeli military said it targeted approximately 160 sites in the Gaza Strip connected to the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups, including four facilities that the army designated as “key strategic assets.”

The Israeli military deployed additional troops and tanks to the Gaza Strip border on Monday following the largest barrage of rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel from the coastal enclave in a single day.

The army was reportedly given a green light from policymakers to pummel terror groups in the Strip if they continued with the barrages, as the terror organizations in the Strip vowed to do.

“The resistance factions’ joint command center is holding a serious conversation about expanding its range of fire. Ashkelon is just the beginning. Approximately one million Zionists will be within the range of our missiles if the Zionist enemy’s decision is to continue its aggression,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesperson for Hamas’s military wing.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, over 300 rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip as of 10 p.m. Monday — a number that was expected to rise as barrages continued throughout the night.

The attacks began shortly after 4:30 p.m., when terrorists fired a Kornet anti-tank guided missile at an Israeli bus near the border, seriously injuring an IDF soldier who was on board at the time. Dozens of other soldiers had previously been on the bus, parked near the Black Arrow memorial near Kibbutz Kfar Azza, and exited moments before the missile struck.

The IDF said dozens of incoming projectiles from Gaza were shot down by the Iron Dome air defense system. Most of the rest landed in open fields outside Israeli communities, but a number struck homes and buildings in cities and towns across the south.

A home and an apartment building were hit in the city of Ashkelon. In the rocket attack on the apartment building, shortly after midnight Monday, seven people were injured, including a woman in her 60s who was found unconscious and seriously wounded.

She was found unresponsive in one of the apartments, suffering from injuries throughout her body caused by shrapnel from the rocket, medics said.

A 40-year-old man was also moderately wounded by shrapnel; two women in their 20s were lightly injured by glass shards; and two men in their 40s and a women in her 90s were treated for smoke inhalation after a fire broke out at the scene, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.

Strikes on buildings in Netivot and Sderot caused significant damage and minor injuries to the occupants, and sparked fires in the surrounding area.

In Netivot, Hadashot TV news showed how a single piece of shrapnel from a rocket pierced the outer wall of one home, flew across the bedroom splintering a baby bed, passed through that wall into the kitchen, through the fridge, and finally smashed into the oven. The family had evacuated the home when rocket alarms sounded and were unhurt.

At least 22 other Israelis were injured in attacks from the Gaza Strip, either by shrapnel caused by rockets and mortar shells or in accidents while running to bomb shelters for cover, medical officials said.

Dozens of people also received treatment after they suffered panic attacks brought on by the rocket and mortar strikes.

In response to the attacks, the Israeli military launched a series of strikes against dozens of targets inside the Gaza Strip, including a number of multi-story buildings and houses belonging to senior Hamas officials deep inside populated areas in the Strip — a move the IDF typically foregoes in favor of attacks on facilities on the outskirts of cities in order to avoid potential collateral damage.

The army also said it targeted three attack tunnels operated by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the two largest terror groups in the Strip.

Three Palestinians — each identified by terror groups as a member — were killed in the army’s initial strikes and three others were reportedly injured, but no casualties were reported in the IDF’s latest round of strikes inside Gazan cities.

In one case, the IDF bombed the headquarters of the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa television station in Gaza City in the central Gaza Strip, which it said was “used by [Hamas] for military activities, including sending messages to terrorist operatives in the West Bank, calls for terror attacks and instructions on how to commit them.”

A former hotel in Gaza City used by Hamas as an internal security office was also hit in an Israeli strike, AFP journalists reported.

“This is an attack on a central government property for Hamas, which was conducted as part of additional attacks that the IDF carried out and as a response to the terror attack that the Hamas terror group is leading against Israeli citizens,” the army said.

The military also said the outlet broadcasts “incitement against the State of Israel and its citizens.”

“The IDF is determined to fulfill its mission of defending Israeli citizens, and is prepared and ready for a variety of scenarios, as necessary,” the army says.

On Monday evening, large numbers of tanks and other military vehicles were seen being moved down to the Gaza border on the backs of large trucks. Earlier in the day, before the barrages began, the army also ordered extra infantry battalions to the region.

Additional Iron Dome air defense batteries were also deployed in southern Israel on Monday morning.

The Israeli military threatened Hamas in the evening in response to the hours-long barrage, saying the terror group would “feel the power of the IDF’s response in the coming hours.”

“The Hamas terror group is responsible for everything that occurs in and emanates from the Gaza Strip, and it will bear the consequences of the terrorist activities conducted against Israeli citizens,” the military said in a statement.

“In addition, a number of rocket-launching cells were attacked,” the IDF said in a statement. “The IDF is continuing at this time to attack terror cites throughout the Strip.”

The military released footage of some of its attacks, which appeared to show strikes on Palestinian rocket-launching teams, military facilities and other sites in the coastal enclave.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry identified the three Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes as Muhammed al-Tatri, 27, Muhammed Oudeh, 22, and Hamad al-Nahal, 23. The military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group claimed al-Tatri and Oudeh as its members. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad said al-Nahal was one of its fighters.

The barrages from Gaza came less than a day after an IDF special operations officer was killed in an operation gone awry that also killed seven Palestinian gunmen in the Strip. Following Sunday night’s incident, the Gaza-ruling terror group Hamas said “the blood of our righteous martyrs will not be wasted.”

The renewed clashes dashed hopes that Israel and Hamas would uphold a precarious ceasefire agreement recently brokered by Egypt and the United Nations and supported by Qatar.

Egyptian and UN officials scrambled on Monday evening to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table.

In light of the barrage from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military ordered residents of communities near the Gaza Strip to remain inside bomb shelters until further notice. That included residents of the towns of Netivot and Ofakim, which are not typically as affected by Gaza rockets as communities closer to the border.

Residents of the cities of Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ashdod were told to stay within close proximity of bomb shelters and protected spaces.

The military also preemptively canceled school for Tuesday in the Gaza border region and in the central Negev and Lachish regions, including in Israel’s fourth largest city Beersheba.

In addition, businesses were ordered closed in the Gaza region, along with government offices, unless they are considered essential, the army said. No large gatherings were allowed in southern Israel on Monday night and Tuesday, it said.

In the central Negev and Lachish regions, which are farther from the Strip, businesses are only ordered shut if they do not have a bomb shelter nearby. Government services there were also scaled back.

In these regions, located dozens of kilometers from Gaza, only groups smaller than 300 would be allowed to gather on Tuesday, the army said.

Agencies contributed to this report.

The Hamas terror group said Tuesday that if Israel continues its airstrikes campaign in the Gaza Strip, it will expand the range of its rocket attacks to include the major southern cities of Ashdod and Beersheba, which together are home to nearly half a million Israelis.

Rocket attacks on Beersheba, located some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Strip, are rare and considered a major escalation. Ashdod lies 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from Gaza.

The threat from Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, came as intense fighting between Israel and Gaza entered its second day, with rocket launches reported at the coastal city of Ashkelon and towns closer to the Gaza border, including Sderot.

“Occupied Ashkelon has entered the range of fire in response to the bombardment of civilian buildings in Gaza,” Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida wrote on Twitter. “Ashdod and Beersheva are the next targets if the enemy continues to bombard civilian buildings.”

Israel’s top-level security cabinet was scheduled to meet Tuesday morning to discuss the situation in Gaza.

In Ashkelon, which took several barrages late Monday and early Tuesday, one person was killed when an apartment building was hit around midnight. Eight others were wounded in the strike, including two women with life-threatening injuries, according to emergency services.

Two men walk past a vehicle that was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon, on November 12, 2018. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)

The terror group, the de facto ruler in Gaza, added that the overnight barrage fired at Ashkelon was in response to Israeli strikes on civilian buildings in Gaza. The city is just 12 kilometers from Gaza.

The IDF said Tuesday that it had hit 150 targets across Gaza since the day before, including sites belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Among the targets hit were weapons warehouses, a naval vessel used by Hamas and a building used as the administration of Hamas’s internal security service overnight, as well as three tunnels.

A spokesman for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terror group in Gaza that fired some of the rockets at Israel, threatened attacks even beyond Beersheba and deeper into Israel.

“What happened yesterday evening and until this moment is part of the traditional response that Israel expects,” the group said. “In the coming hours the enemy will receive what it doesn’t expect. Continued aggression of this kind will lead the resistance to expand its response so that the settlers beyond the cities of Beersheba and Ashdod will have to remain next to shelters.”

IDF spokesman Brigadier General Ronen Manelis responded to the threats in a tweet Tuesday morning, mocking the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership for hiding in bunkers while Gaza’s residents suffer the consequences of their actions.

“I am hearing a list of tweets and announcements coming from bunkers in the Strip,” he wrote. “I suggest that they start to think about a tweet that explains to the residents of Gaza what disaster they are leading them into. Israel’s residents are resolute, the IDF is determined, and cowards’ tweets don’t impress us.”

Fire and smoke billow following Israeli air strikes targeting Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, on November 12, 2018. (Said KHATIB / AFP)

The Israel Defense Forces said that, including the fresh barrage Tuesday, more than 400 rockets and mortar rounds had been shot at Israel since Monday, including 70 rockets fired at Israeli towns since midnight, in what was being called the largest-ever barrage on southern Israel.

The IDF said dozens of those had been knocked down by the Iron Dome anti-missile system overnight, and “about 100” had been intercepted since the rocket volleys began Monday afternoon.

While most of the rockets shot at Israel that were not intercepted by Iron Dome landed in open areas, several scored hits on homes and other buildings.

The rocket attacks began shortly after 4:30 p.m., when terrorists fired a Kornet anti-tank guided missile at an Israeli bus near the border, seriously injuring an IDF soldier who was on board at the time. Dozens of other soldiers had previously been on the bus, parked near the Black Arrow memorial near Kibbutz Kfar Azza, and exited moments before the missile struck.

In Gaza, there were reports of continuing Israeli airstrikes overnight, after a day that saw dozens of attacks across the Strip, including in populated areas.

The Hamas-run health ministry said four people were killed, three of whom were identified as members of terror groups.