Tag Archives: Rockets

Hezbollah pelted Haifa with rockets on Tuesday in the heaviest attack yet

Iron Dome intercepts rockets

Important Takeaways:

  • Hezbollah pelted Haifa with rockets on Tuesday in the heaviest attack yet on the northern Israeli port city, as the Lebanese terror group insisted its military capabilities “were fine” despites weeks of devastating IDF strikes.
  • More than 100 rockets were fired at the city within half an hour around midday.
  • Most of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, although some got through, exploding in the Haifa suburbs of Kiryat Yam and Kiryat Motzkin, security services said.
  • The blue skies above the city were filled with white trails of the interceptor rockets rising to meet the incoming barrages, and explosions mushroomed above Haifa as sirens wailed and thousands of Israelis ran for bomb shelters.
  • The salvos came as the IDF announced that it was carrying out strikes against Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
  • The large-scale attack also came moments after Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem, one of the last surviving members of the group’s top leadership, insisted that Hezbollah’s military capabilities were intact, that it had increased its rocket fire on Israel, and that it was itching for “clashes” with Israeli troops in Lebanon.
  • He said Hezbollah’s top leadership was directing the war and that the commanders killed by Israel had been replaced. “We have no vacant posts,” he added.
  • Qassem also said that Hezbollah supports efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon, but for the first time omitted any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a precondition to halting his group’s fire on Israel.
  • “In any case, after the issue of a ceasefire takes shape, and once diplomacy can achieve it, all of the other details can be discussed and decisions can be made,” he said. “If the enemy (Israel) continues its war, then the battlefield will decide.”

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Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third largest city Haifa on Monday as Israeli forces poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon

Hezbollah fires rockets

Important Takeaways:

  • Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third largest city Haifa on Monday as Israeli forces looked poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon on the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has spread conflict across the Middle East.
  • Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group fighting Israel in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
  • Hezbollah said it targeted areas north of Haifa in a second salvo of missiles later in the day.
  • The military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon, and that two Israeli soldiers were killed in border-area combat, taking the military death toll inside Lebanon so far to 11.
  • It said it also carried out a targeted strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where a thick plume of smoke could be seen.
  • The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States, Israel’s superpower ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing Middle East.
  • The Gaza war has given rise to a multi-front Middle East conflict, drawing in Iran’s broader “Axis of Resistance” – Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, Iraqi militia groups – and sparking several rare, direct confrontations between Israel and Iran.

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Evidence Biden Administration is playing both sides: US donates $896 million to Hamas After October 7th massacre

Important Takeaways:

  • Since October 7…. the total of US taxpayer funds donated to Gaza as a reward since the massacre on October 7 to $896 million, or close to a billion dollars.
  • A lawsuit, brought in December 2022 and updated in March 2024, by Rep. Ronny Jackson and victims of terror attacks in Israel, alleges that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken “knowingly and unlawfully” provided more than $1.5 billion in aid to Gaza and the West Bank since taking office. Biden and Blinken have “known for years” that the US aid is providing “material support” for Hamas’ “tunnels, rockets, weapon procurement, and command and control infrastructure,” among other terror structures, the lawsuit stated.
  • The Biden administration has sought to have the case dismissed twice but failed. On June 28, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that the lawsuit can proceed, and that there is evidence the Biden administration continued awarding taxpayer cash to UNRWA even after Congress blocked funding to that group due to its support for Hamas’s military infrastructure.
  • In short, the Biden administration has donated less to Sudan and DRC Congo combined, where a total of nearly 50 million people face starvation, than to Gaza, where 2 million people face no such thing. What is going on? And where is Congress?
  • According to FBI director Christopher Wray, “the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate years ago.” Iran, officially labeled the world’s leading sponsor of state terrorism by the 2023 US annual Terrorism Report, calls the US “the Great Satan” and continues to vow “Death to America.”
  • Blinken casually announced in a July 19 interview that Iran had reduced the time it would need to create sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon “to one to two weeks.” He then went on to gaslight the audience by claiming that the Biden administration has been “maximizing pressure on Iran across the board.”
  • Why is the Biden administration, under the pretense of “humanitarian aid,” drowning these terrorist enemies of America in US taxpayer money? And what, if anything, is Congress going to do about it?

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Israel takes out high level target: Hezbollah responds with a barrage of rockets

Israel-fires-from-rockets

Important Takeaways:

  • Hezbollah fired more than 250 rockets into Israel on Wednesday after Israel killed Sami Taleb Abdullah, the most senior Hezbollah commander to be eliminated since October 7.
  • This was the largest one-day rocket attack since the war began and included for the first time in this conflict rocket attacks as far south as Tiberias.
  • The IDF said most rockets fell in open areas, some others were intercepted, and others fell in other locations.
  • Al Mayadeen reported that a number of Israeli military sites, including the Mount Meron air traffic control base, were targeted during the attacks.
  • Hezbollah said it carried out at least 17 operations against Israel on Wednesday, including eight in response to what it called the “assassination”.
  • Abdallah was senior to Wissam Tawil, a high-level Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli strike in January, said the sources in Lebanon, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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IDF gains control of fires set by Hezbollah rockets across Northern Israel: No human life at risk

Northern-Israel-fire-Getty-640x480

Important Takeaways:

  • Fires started by Hezbollah rockets and drones ignited and spread throughout northern Israel early this week, posing a new challenge for the Israeli military and leading to public demands for action against the Iranian terror group.
  • The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a statement Monday evening:
    • Over the past few hours, the IDF has been conducting a situational assessment with Israel Fire and Rescue Services to allocate additional means, forces, and firefighting capabilities in order to extinguish the fires in northern Israel.
    • At this stage, IDF reserve soldiers, engineer tools, mechanical equipment, fire trucks, and fire tanks were reinforced.
    • An IDF Home Front Command’s fire battalion is currently operating at the scene and assisting fire and rescue forces.
    • The forces gained control over the locations of fire, and at this stage, no human life is at risk.
    • The Commanding Officer of the Northern Command is currently arriving at the Kiryat Shmona Fire Station.
    • Six IDF reservist soldiers were lightly injured as a result of smoke inhalation and transferred to a hospital to receive medical treatment. Their families have been notified.

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Israel attack comes during 50th anniversary of 1973 Yom Kippur War and at the end of the biblical holiday Sukkot

Escape-Rocket-Hit

Important Takeaways:

  • Developing: Israel Is at War – Thousands of Rockets, Border Invasion, 200+ Dead, 1,000+ Wounded
  • Sirens blared as more than 2,000 rockets launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip attempted to pummel the Jewish state, and Israelis ran for bomb shelters early on Saturday. By evening, Gaza terrorists had launched roughly 3,000 rockets at Israel. At the same time, a combined offensive including truckloads of dozens of armed terrorists infiltrated through the border into southern Israel by land, paragliders entered by air, and others by sea.
  • “I convened the heads of the security establishment and ordered – first of all – to clear out the communities that have been infiltrated by terrorists. This currently is being carried out,” he said. “At the same time, I have ordered an extensive mobilization of reserves and that we return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known. The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” he added.
  • “We are at war and we will win it.”
  • The attack comes at the end of the biblical Sukkot holiday. Known as Simchat Torah, it’s the day Jewish people celebrate the Word of God.
  • It also comes one day after the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War when Israel was taken off guard by a massive attack from an Arab coalition.

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Air raids sound in Israel as Gaza militants launch rockets as Passover begins and Ramadan continues

Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Gaza militants blast rockets into Israel as Passover holiday begins
  • Tensions are spiking in Israel as the Jewish Passover and Muslim Ramadan play out
  • The Israeli military says all seven rockets exploded in midair. Tensions remain high in the country as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan continues, while the Jewish Passover began Wednesday. Israeli forces have tracked rocket barrages from Gaza throughout the week, though few have escaped the country’s air defenses.
  • The Israeli air force struck a Hamas weapons facility on Wednesday after a particularly violent night at the mosque saw some 350 people arrested. Israeli police said they had moved in after “several law-breaking youths and masked agitators” barricaded themselves into the mosque and began chanting violent slogans.
  • Last year, the same combination of tensions amid Ramadan and the Passover resulted in an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

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Cloud Seeding Rocket lands on busy sidewalk in China. Confirmed by Yeuchi County Meteorological Bureau

Revelation 16:9 “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Video shows ‘cloud-seeding’ rocket narrowly missing pedestrians on busy sidewalk
  • China is shooting small, chemical-filled rockets high into the sky in an effort to manipulate weather conditions in parts of the country plagued by recent climate extremes.
  • Confirmation of the cloud-seeding operation was made by the Yeuchi County Meteorological Bureau
  • Cloud seeding is a technique used by China that allows for greater rainfall, hailstorm prevention, clearing the skies of clouds, as well as to lower air pollution levels.
  • Scientists have pursued the technique for decades, and China recently used cloud seeding to clear clouds out of the sky in order to celebrate the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in July 2021.
  • The technique is made through the addition of chemicals, including particles of silver iodide, among clouds to spur condensation and increase the chance of precipitation in a particular area.

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COVID and conflict: Gaza’s hospitals strained on two fronts

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Gaza’s hospitals were already struggling to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic before the conflict with Israel erupted last week. Now, medics say, they are being stretched further.

“The Ministry of Health is fighting on two fronts in the Gaza Strip – the coronavirus front and the other front, which is more difficult, is the injuries and the wounded,” said Marwan Abu Sada, the director of surgery in Gaza’s main Shifa hospital.

More than a week into fighting, with Palestinians pounded night and day by airstrikes and Israelis racing for refuge from rockets as sirens wail, Gaza’s doctors are battling to keep pace.

At Shifa, the biggest health facility among the 13 hospitals and 54 clinics serving the crowded enclave’s 2 million people, the number of intensive care beds has been doubled to 32 as the toll of those wounded from the conflict mounts.

Like the rest of the system, the 750-bed hospital faced shortages of medicines and equipment before fighting erupted on May 10 – blamed by medics on a blockade led by Israel and backed by Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza. Israel says its measures aim to stop arms reaching militants. “The list of essential medications and medical disposables suffered an acute shortage,” Abu Sada said.

It’s not just medicines in short supply. Fuel for generators that power Gaza’s hospitals – with main’s power too intermittent to be relied on – is also running out.

Israel says its blockade does not aim to stop medicines or other humanitarian supplies, and any shortages are the result of actions by Hamas, the Islamist group that has run Gaza since 2007, when the blockade was imposed.

“Hamas constructed a network of underground terror tunnels in Gaza underneath the homes of Palestinians, using funds meant for their health & welfare to expand Hamas’ terror machine instead,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Twitter Monday.

Hamas has rejected the accusation.

Palestinians say 201 people have been killed in Gaza since the fighting started, with hundreds more hurt, including those wounded by shrapnel or injured by collapsing buildings.

Israel has reported 10 dead in the rocket salvoes, with many more injured, some directly by the blasts and others when dashing to safety. Some are in a critical condition.

“We have a very bad time over here,” said Racheli Malka, an Israeli living in Ashkelon, a city north of Gaza repeatedly hit by rockets. “I hope it will finish fast.”

Nearby, Israelis celebrated the Jewish festival of Shavuot in a synagogue that had a hole caused by a rocket strike.

The Israeli military said Hamas – regarded by Israel, the United States and European Union as a terrorist group – and others militants had fired about 3,150 rockets in the past week.

‘OLD EQUIPMENT, OLD BUILDINGS’

Sacha Bootsma, the head of the World Health Organization in Gaza, said COVID-19 had strained the enclave’s struggling system.

“Before COVID, the health system could be categorized as fragile because it has very old equipment, old buildings, a shortage of properly trained health staff and, of course, a chronic shortage of essential medicines,” she said.

Gaza has reported about 106,000 cases of COVID-19, or about 5.3% of the population, with 986 deaths, health official say.

While Israel has rolled out one of the fastest vaccination programs in the world, fully inoculating about 55% of its 9.3 million people, Gaza received about 110,000 doses, or enough for 55,000 people, health officials say, to be distributed among one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

One ward at Shifa, still marked “Corona Isolation Department”, has had to be turned into an intensive care unit for those injured in the conflict.

“We require more urgent support from international and relief institutions,” said Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesman for the ministry of health, calling for medicines and ambulances.

For those living near Shifa hospital, the sound of ambulances wears on their already shattered nerves. “As long as we hear sirens we know it is not over yet,” said Karam Badr, 57.

Yet, healthcare workers keep the creaking medical facilities going. WHO’s Bootsma said scarce resources were still reaching those most in need.

“The resilience of the health system is remarkable,” she said.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Additional reporting by Eli Berlzon in Ashkelon; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alex Richardson)

No normal life for Israelis in range of Gaza rockets

By Amir Cohen and Ari Rabinovitch

ASHKELON, Israel (Reuters) – Sirens wail, radio broadcasts are interrupted, cellphones beep with Red Alerts every few seconds, and warning messages flash up on TV. When you hear them, rush for cover.

This has become the routine across large areas of central and southern Israel, from small towns bordering Gaza to metropolitan Tel Aviv and southern Beersheva.

More than 2,000 rockets have been launched by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups into Israel this week alone, amid the most serious fighting between Israel and Gaza militants since 2014.

It’s not a routine you can ever get used to, said Lior Dabush from the coastal city of Ashkelon, about 12 km (7 miles) north of Gaza.

“We rarely leave the house,” Dabush, 37, said from her apartment’s ‘safe’ room – a mandatory feature for all new homes in Israel – where she now sleeps with her two children.

“We take short showers and we don’t venture far from home,” she told Reuters. “At times my eight-year-old son does not want to leave the safe room.”

Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, launched the latest round of rocket attacks on Monday, after widespread Palestinian anger at threatened evictions of families from East Jerusalem, and Israeli police clashes with worshippers near Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.

The threat of rockets even penetrated as far as Jerusalem, when impacts in villages on the outskirts set off sirens in the centre of the city, forcing Israelis taking part in an annual holiday to flee for cover, some running under the medieval battlements of the Jaffa Gate entrance to the walled Old City.

‘DAMAGED FOR LIFE’

On the other side of the Gaza border, Palestinian civilians also find themselves trapped between the militant groups firing the rockets and the Israeli military, which has spent days bombarding Gaza with hundreds of aerial and artillery shells.

Residents of north Gaza have fled their homes to take shelter in U.N.-run schools and Palestinian officials say at least 124 people there have been killed, including 31 children.

The rockets have killed eight people in Israel, including a five-year-old who was struck by shrapnel that managed to pierce the shielding of his reinforced ‘safe’ room.

That attack happened in the border town of Sderot, where it’s a matter of seconds between siren and impact, and the streets are largely empty of pedestrians.

Idit Botera, mother of a one-year-old child, said her sixth-floor apartment was damaged in the same barrage on Wednesday.

“We still haven’t processed what happened, our blood is boiling,” she said shortly after the strike. “These are kids who are being damaged for life and it doesn’t make sense.”

The impact on children – and the effect it will have on them later in life – is a common theme for Israelis living near Gaza, for whom rockets are an unwelcome but unavoidable fact of life.

In Netiv Haasara, a small Israeli community just north of the barrier that separates Israel from the Gaza Strip, tour guide Raz Shmilovitch, 45, reflected earlier this week on the toll the latest hostilities were taking.

“My family is not here now, I have taken them to a more remote safe place in which they will be safer to stay,” he said.

“In the longer run, once the war is over we are going to have to deal with the consequences of raising post-traumatic kids,” he told Reuters.

“If you have been living all your life as a kid under the threat of rockets being launched and being landed in your back yard, and you have between five to seven seconds from alarm to impact and that is the reality you are used to, that messes with your brain.”

(Reporting by Ran Tzabari, Amir Cohen, Baz Ratner and Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Gareth Jones)