Friday, November 16, 2012

Air Force hits 70 Gaza Strip targets in an hour

From JPost, 15 Nov 2012:

Israel strkes 320 targets in the Strip since launching Operation Pillar of Defense with assassination of Hamas military chief; 16 Palestinians killed; Gazans fire over 270 rockets into South, killing 3.
The Israeli Air Force struck some 70 targets in the Gaza Strip in the past hour, the IDF Spokesman's Office said shortly before 10 p.m. Thursday. Among the targets, the IDF statement said, were underground medium-range rocket launching pads. The most recent blitz of air strikes brought the total number to well over 300.
Palestinians have fired over 275 rockets from Gaza into the South since the IDF launched its operation. Two rockets triggered an air raid siren in Tel Aviv, marking the first time that a real siren was sounded in Tel Aviv since the Gulf War in the early 1990s.
The goal of the IDF operation, the statement added, is to significantly damage the ability of Palestinian terror groups to fire rockets into Israeli territory. Operation Pillar of Defense began Wednesday afternoon with the assassination of Hamas's military chief Ahmed Jabari. The targets immediately expanded to rocket launching and storage sites, particularly longer-range rockets that can strike over 40 kilometers from the Gaza Strip...
...Following a rocket strike targetting the Tel Aviv area Thursday night, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned, "This escalation will exact a price that the other side will have to pay."
Earlier on Thursday, Barak hinted that Operation Pillar of Defense against Gaza-based terrorists could be a lengthy battle.
Also Thursday, the IDF requested authorization to call up 30,000 reserve troops, possibly preparing for a ground operation.

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