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Two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip in the direction of the greater Tel Aviv area on Friday afternoon prompting a red alert air raid siren to be sounded in the city for the second straight day.
The IDF stated that no rocket impact was located in Tel Aviv, but local residents reported hearing an explosion following the siren. No injuries or damage were reported.
Thursday and Friday\’s attacks on the Tel Aviv area marked the first time the center of the country was hit in the renewed violence from the Gaza Strip and the first time that a real siren was sounded in Tel Aviv since the Gulf War in the early 1990s. Palestinian Islamic Jihad took responsibility for Thursday\’s rocket on Tel Aviv.
The attack on the greater Tel Aviv area came as Operation Pillar of Defense entered its third day. Some 70 rockets fell in the South on Friday morning despite the IDF\’s continued air strikes on Gaza, meant to root out the terror infrastructure in the territory.
Following the attack on Tel Aviv, Palestinian sources claimed that the Israel Air Force carried out 12 air strikes in Gaza in a period of ten minutes.
More than 350 rockets have landed in Israel since the operation began on Wednesday, with three Israelis losing their lives in a rocket attack on Kiryat Malachi on Thursday.
The IDF has struck some 500 terror targets in Gaza since the operation began. According to Palestinian sources 20 people have been killed in IDF strikes on Gaza.