(JTA) — Palestinian terrorists in Gaza continued to fire rockets into southern Israel, apparently in response to Israel signing normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Some 13 rockets were fired early Wednesday morning over the course of a half hour. Eight were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, according to the Israel Defense Forces. The others are believed to have landed in empty fields.
It was the second salvo of rockets fired within 12 hours in response to the official signing ceremony Tuesday on the South Lawn of the White House. The first salvo, two rockets, was fired as the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates was speaking. Shrapnel injured two people. The condition of one, a 62-year-old father of 15 who was picking up day-old bread from a local bakery in Ashdod to distribute to the poor, worsened overnight and he is now listed in critical condition.
The IDF responded with airstrikes on what it called “targets of the Hamas terrorist organization,” including a weapons and explosives factory and a military compound used for rocket fire experiments.
“The IDF takes all terrorist activity against Israeli territory very seriously and will continue to act as much as necessary against attempts to harm Israeli citizens and their sovereignty,” the IDF said in a statement. “The terrorist organization Hamas bears responsibility for what is happening in and out of the Gaza Strip, and will bear the consequences of terrorist acts against Israeli citizens.”
Hamas released a statement after the rocket fire.
“The agreements between Israel and Bahrain and the UAE isn’t worth the ink spilled or the paper it was signed on,” the statement said, according to Haaretz. “The Palestinian people are determined to continue the struggle to get all of their rights, and will treat these agreements as if they do not exist.”
