AL-QUDS (Dispatches) — Sirens wailed just before the Jewish holiday of Shavuot began on Sunday evening, sending settlers in Ashdod running for cover as they have dozens of times over the past week since the latest war between Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza and the Israeli military erupted.
Ashdod is the occupying regime’s largest port on the Mediterranean coast. The city of about 225,000 people is around 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of the Gaza Strip.
“We are in shock. It’s a nightmare,” said Chen Farag, a 24-year-old cable technician, quoted by the Associated Press. “It’s hard to sleep, because we are thinking, what if Gaza tries to hit us again?”
The cycle of fighting and ceasefires has repeated itself numerous times in the past 15 years since the first rockets were fired at southern occupied territories from the Gaza Strip. The barrages have caused deep frustration for settlers, many weary over what they see as the occupying regime’s failure to change to the situation, the AP said.
Since the latest Israeli aggression erupted last week, Palestinian resistance groups have fired more than 3,200 rockets at occupied cities.
When sirens signal incoming rockets, settlers can seek shelter in communal shelters or in reinforced rooms in their apartments, a feature of newer buildings. Many have been pinned down indoors, fearing they couldn’t reach shelter in time, the report said.
The rocket attacks come in retaliation for the Zionist regime’s aggression.
In Gaza, at least 212 Palestinians have been martyred in Israeli airstrikes, including 61 children and 36 women, with more than 1,400 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Fighting erupted on May 10, when Zionist forces and extremists attacked Palestinian protesters at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Since then, Palestinian resistance fighters have fired heavy barrages at Zionist targets deep inside Occupied Palestine.
For hundreds of thousands in communities in southern occupied territories — cities, towns, kibbutzim and farming villages — air raid sirens have been unrelenting as missiles rain down.
Settlers said the past week of fighting has been far more intense than previous rounds, with Hamas firing near-nonstop barrages of rockets.
This is the fourth war since 2007. The Zionist regime and Egypt have enforced a blockade of Gaza for the past 14 years, but despite the chokehold, the resistance has been able to produce thousands of rockets.
Ashkelon — just 11 kilometers (6 miles) from Gaza — has been hit hard, with rockets making it through the Zionist regime’s Iron Dome missile system with every barrage.
“Every time you hear a couple of interceptions by the Iron Dome, and two or three explosions on the ground,” the AP quoted Yoash Hagay, a resident of the city, as saying.
Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press on with airstrikes against Gaza “as long as necessary in order to return calm and
security to all Israeli citizens,” but the situation has only worsened for the regime.
Settlers said southern occupied territories have seen “many years of neglect” by the occupying regime. They criticized the regime’s handling of the past month of mounting tensions in Al-Quds, violence that heralded the Gaza fighting.
“We are tired of this,” said Farag in Ashdod. “We always hope that it will end. And it will be just be quiet.”
“It never happens,” she added.
Hamas deputy head Khalil al-Hayya said late Monday, “The Zionist enemy saw that the resistance front was able to deter it, and ruin its cities. Zionists have failed to achieve any victory in the face of the sons of our nation.”
A high-ranking Israeli military official said Tel Aviv has seen the highest ever concentration of rocket attacks from the besieged Gaza Strip on the occupied territories during the past week.
“We were not fully prepared, and the volume of rockets fired from Gaza is the highest” compared to the earlier confrontations, Hebrew-language Walla news website quoted the commander of the so-called home front command Major General Ori Gordin as saying.
On Tuesday, retaliatory rockets launched from Gaza killed two in southern occupied territories, hours after Zionist airstrikes toppled a six-story building in the Palestinian territory that housed bookstores and educational centers.
Hundreds of Palestinians burned tires and hurled stones toward an Israeli military checkpoint in Ramallah in the West Bank.
One protester was martyred and more than 70 others wounded — including 16 by live fire — in clashes with Zionist troops in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron (Al-Khalil_ and other cities, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Zionist army said two soldiers were wounded by gunshots to the leg.
Muhammad Barakeh, one of the organizers of the strike, said Palestinians are expressing a “collective position” against Israel’s “aggression” in Gaza and Al-Quds, as well as the “brutal repression” by Zionist forces across Occupied Palestine.
The latest retaliation from Gaza hit a plant in a region bordering the besieged territory. In addition to the two people killed, who were in their 30s, Zionist officials said they transported another seven wounded to the hospital.
The Israeli military said Gaza fighters also fired rockets at the Erez crossing and at the Kerem Shalom crossing. It said a soldier was wounded in the attack on Erez.
The occupying regime continued its airstrikes into Gaza, leaving behind a massive mound of rebar and concrete slabs in its attack on the six-story building with centers used by the Islamic University and other colleges. Desks, office chairs, books and computer wires could be seen in the debris. Residents sifted through the rubble, searching for their belongings.
“The whole street started running, then destruction, an earthquake,” said Jamal Herzallah, a resident of the area. “This whole area was shaking.”
Since 2012, Hamed al-Ijla had run a training center in the building, teaching first aid, hospital management and other skills to thousands of students.
When the war is over, “I will set up a tent across the street and resume work,” he said.
Israeli attacks have damaged at least 18 hospitals and clinics and entirely destroyed one health facility, the World Health Organization said in a new report. Nearly half of all essential drugs in the territory have run out.
The WHO said the bombing of key roads, including those leading to the main Shifa Hospital, has hindered the movement of ambulances and supply vehicles in Gaza, which was already struggling to cope with a coronavirus outbreak.
The Zionist regime has vowed to press on with its aggression, and the United States signaled it would not pressure it to halt its attacks.
The Biden administration has declined to criticize the occupying regime and has blocked a proposed UN Security Council statement calling for an end to the crisis.