JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli civilian was killed after a rocket fired from Gaza slammed into a building in Ashkelon in southern Israel.
Moshe Agadi, a 58-year-old father of four, was hit with shrapnel to his chest and stomach in his yard at about 2:30 on Sunday morning.
The rocket was one of more than 450 fired at Israel from Gaza in the 24 hours since the barrage began at 10 a.m. on Saturday.
Agadi’s brother, Shmuel, said that Moshe was smoking a cigarette outside in between constant Code Red incoming rocket warning sirens and failed to make it to the family’s bomb shelter in time.
Agadi died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.
He is the first Israeli to be killed since the recent escalation of violence from Palestinian terror groups in Gaza and apparently the first Israeli fatality from a rocket fired from Gaza since the 2014 Gaza war.
The Israel Defense Forces struck another 60 Hamas and Islamic Jihad military targets in Gaza in the early Sunday morning hours, in addition to 120 other retaliatory strikes on Saturday evening.
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