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A heavy barrage of rockets targeted southern Israel on Tuesday, causing damage in the city of Netivot in in surrounding areas. No injuries were reported.
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The rockets were fired from an area in the central Gaza Strip soon after IDF troops left the region amid the redeployment of forces in the new phase of the war and occurred shortly before the war cabinet convened in the south with IDF command there to discuss the return of residents to their homes, evacuated in the Hamas massacre of October 7.
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Damage caused in a rocket attack on Netivot on Tuesday
(Photo: Fire and Rescue Authority )
The local municipality said some 50 rockets were fired in the massive and unusual barrage, surprising residents of the city who were not aware that Hamas was still able to launch such an attack after 102 days of war.
The rockets fell in the region of the Gaza border but in communities that had not been evacuated following the Hamas massacre of October 7.
"This is a nod from Hamas," Minister Gideon Saar a member of the war cabinet, said. "The objectives have not yet been achieved. We must not stop the fighting before they are. It is wrong to reduce the military pressure on Hamas. It must be increased," he said.