JERUSALEM (JTA) — At least 116 rockets struck southern Israel on the eighth day of the country’s Operation Pillar of Defense against terrorists in Gaza.
Twenty-six of the rockets fired Wednesday were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, according to the Israel Defense Forces. A house in the southern community was hit with a rocket Wednesday morning; no one was hurt in the attack. An army reserves officer was critically wounded in an attack on the Eshkol Regional Council.
Also Wednesday, the funeral was held for Israeli soldier Yosef Partuk, 18, of Emanuel, who was killed in a rocket strike a day earlier, and a suspected terrorist bombing attack on a bus in Tel Aviv injured at least 21 people.
The IDF said it targeted more than 50 terror sites throughout the day on Wednesday, including underground rocket launchers, smuggling tunnels and terror tunnels. Several buildings that belong to senior Hamas operatives and serve as command and control centers were also targeted, the IDF said in a statement.
The IDF said that overnight Tuesday it targeted dozens of what it called "terror infrastructure sites" throughout Gaza.
The targets included, according to the IDF, the Ministry of Internal Security — it served as one of the main command and control centers for the Hamas terror organization; a police compound, as well as a military hideout used as a senior operatives’ meeting place; and a communications center. The Israeli Navy targeted a rocket launching site, a Hamas post and a structure used for Hamas’ terror activity, the IDF said.
The IDF said it also hit a Hamas intelligence operations center in a media building in Gaza that housed the offices of the French news agency AFP, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, and targeted some 50 underground rocket launchers, terror tunnels, three weapon storage facilities and a weapon manufacturing site, as well as a system of tunnels used to transport fuel to the Hamas.
