Jerusalem – A rocket struck the backyard of a house in the Tel Aviv suburb of Yehud on Tuesday morning, causing major damage in the first direct hit in the metropolitan area since Operation Protective Edge began 15 days ago.
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In the strike, one woman was lightly hurt and another was treated for shock. The rocket landed in the yard between two houses, completely destroying a metal storehouse and leaving a deep crater in the ground.
Oz, a neighbor who lives across the street said that the building shook from the explosion and in the apartment above him a young man went into shock and a pregnant woman began going into labor after the blast.
Like an incident last week where a large chunk of shrapnel crashed through the roof a house in the Tel Aviv area, this strike was also in a run-down neighborhood of dilapidated houses.
One resident said people in the buildings have hallways to run to and the rest go to public shelters because the houses don’t have protected areas and have fragile roofs.
“These are old Arab style houses, they aren’t safe.”
Colonel Effi Mishov, the commander of the Gush Region of the Home Front Command, said the incident reinforced the importance of following safety protocol.
“We always say that we treat every rocket as though it will be an impact. The iron Dome is a great answer to the threat but it is not 100% effective.
Across the street a crowd of locals huddled in front of the cameras of the Israeli and foreign press, calling for Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to “erase Gaza”, with one resident saying “don’t be a woman Bibi, get rid of Gaza. Just like they don’t want the Jews here we don’t want Arabs either.”
Dor, a 24-year-old resident of the neighborhood, struck a different tone.
“These are innocent civilians that they’re targeting here with the rockets. We’re not trying to attack Palestinians, we’re not looking for war, we’re fighting terrorists. Rockets don’t differentiate between religion or race.”
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Yehud is hardly a “suburb” of Tel Aviv, it is the closest civilian area to Ben Gurion Airport. That was the target not Tel Aviv or Yehud. The Israeli leaders need to adopt the war strategy of Air Marshal Arthur “Bomber” Harris, the highly decorated head of British Bomber Command during the Second World War. He flattened both Hamburg and Dresden as they were legitimate war targets from where Britain and British forces were endangered. More than 100,000 “civilians” i.e. enemy citizens, were killed. Obama is moaning about the loss of life in Gaza. How many civilians did the Americans kill in Vietnam? How many did they slaughter in Afghanistan and Iraq? I have no problem with what they did in any of those three places. I have a problem with the hypocrisy of Obama. The terrorists in Gaza are tunneling into Israel. That wasn’t what was going on in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq but still the US felt the need to go all out to war without regard for the loss of civilian life.
kfar chabad is also right next to the airport