Rocket from Lebanon lands in Upper Galilee, sirens blare in Haifa earlier
Small radical organization fired rocket from Lebanon, not Hezbollah, source says; IDF returns fire from area where rocket was fired.
By YAAKOV LAPPINAn IDF soldier monitors the Israel-Lebanon border.(photo credit: REUTER/Baz Ratner)
One rocket was fired from Lebanon on Friday morning on a village in the Upper Galilee. There were no injuries in the attack.Artillery fire was directed at the area from which the rocket was fired, a senior army source said.The rocket was not fired by Hezbollah but by a small radical organization in Lebanon, Maj.-Gen. (res). Amos Gilad, director of Political-Security Affairs at the Defense Ministry, told Channel 2.Also on Friday morning, at around 3:30 a.m. sirens rang out in Haifa and Hadera. The IDF is examining that incident.The IDF struck 1,100 targets belonging to Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip since the start of an operation launched Monday to end Gazan rocket attacks, and 210 targets over the past 24 hours, a senior security source said. Fifty targets belonging to terror organizations were destroyed overnight between Thursday and Friday.Over the past 24 hours, the IDF hit 81 underground rocket launchers, 21 command and control centers, 15 attack tunnels, and ten training centers. Seven Hamas regime buildings were also hit. Since the start of the operation, the IDF has struck 600 underground rocket launchers, 95 command and control centers, 61 underground tunnels, and 22 regime buildings. On Thursday, the IAF carried out a series of targeted assassinations against senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders.Two thirds of Gaza casualties are combatants, the source said."Every four and a half minute a building is struck in Gaza. That's our rate of fire at this time. In the coming hours, I'd expect to see the same trend," a source said. During overnight strikes, Israel Navy ships fired on targets on the Gazan coast.
Meanwhile, the IDF is continuing to prepare a ground offensive option, the source added. "Hamas will have to ask itself questions about how its force which took between ten to 15 years to build up, sustained so much damage. They smuggled rockets, than moved to domestic production, and storage, and searched for weaknesses. They searched for the 'impressive' picture of a scared nation running to shelter. But they got a totally different picture. They met a defense system [Iron Dome], and a public that goes to the beach, hears a siren, goes to a safe room, and then goes back to the beach."Early Friday morning sirens rang out in Haifa and Hadera. The IDF is examining that incident.
