Operation Cast Lead
Day 3 - Monday 29 December 2008
Gaza militants on Monday fired more than 50 rockets and mortars into Israel, killing two other people - an Israeli Arab in the city of Ashkelon and another Israeli at a communal farm, Nahal Oz, near Gaza. On Monday 29 December 2008 HAMAS Grad missile hits construction site in Ashkelon, killing one and wounding 16, five of them moderately. The worker killed was identified as Hani al-Mahdi, 27, of Aroar, a Beduin settlement in the Negev. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. At least 50 rockets had been fired into Israel since Monday morning. One home in Sderot suffered a direct hit. Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket into the Israeli city of Ashdod for the first time, killing an Israeli woman and wounding two other people. The rocket hit a bus stop in the city late Monday, reaching further into Israel than any previous rocket attack from Gaza. Ashdod lies about 40 kilometers north of Gaza.
As part of the actions being taken to reinforce the rocket alert systems in the city, on Monday (Dec. 29) the Home Front Command began distributing beepers to all the families in Sderot in order to warn every time the "Color Red" alarm siren sounds throughout the city. Newly recruited IDF trainees from the Nitzanim training base helped with the distribution of beepers in a thorough and supervised manner.
Israeli warplanes destroyed the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza City and made at least five strikes against the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Air Force destroyed 40 tunnels along the Philadelphi Route, near the Israeli-Egyptian border, that were used to smuggle weapons and terrorists into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. It also struck a weapon center in Gaza used to develop and manufacture Kassam rockets. Israel war ships, which had joined the operation, shelled Gaza city's pier, partially destroying it. At about 18:00 Monday evening, the IAF struck a Hamas vehicle loaded with dozens of Grad type missiles in the Jabaliya area, in the Gaza Strip. The vehicle was hit resulting in the secondary explosion of the Grad missiles in the vehicle. According to IDF assessments, the missiles were being transferred by Hamas to a hiding location, fearing that the previous location was being targeted by the IDF, or were on route to missile launching sites.
Hamas vowed to avenge the Israeli actions with suicide attacks on Israeli streets and cafes. "We will not compromise or back down on our religion or cause," Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said. "If you kill thousands of us, you will not be able to kill our spirit, our honor, our dignity, our resistance, our loyalty to our martyrs nor our loyalty to this new quest."
In Iran, which denies allegations that it supplies ally Hamas with arms, thousands of Iranians staged anti-Israel demonstrations in Tehran. "We will fight. We will die. We will not compromise!" demonstrators shouted. The final count down has started for the collapse of the Zionist regime, government spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Elham said on Monday. Speaking on the sidelines of a large rally held to protest the ongoing slaughter of the defenseless people in Gaza Strip by the Zionist regime, the spokesman said that Israel has "waged a war not only against the innocent Gazans but against the whole humanity." "This is a battle not only in the Islamic lands but in the whole world and its threats would possibly spill over even to Europe," Elham said.
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