Israel faces a multipronged terror assault as Palestinian groups fire relentless rocket barrages from Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon and Hamas-held Gaza. Inside Israel, Palestinians are rioting at Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount, and Israeli civilians are once again victims of deadly terrorist attacks.
On Friday morning, two sisters were murdered. Their mother was seriously injured when a Palestinian gunman riddled their car with bullets near the Palestinian city of Jericho in the West Bank.
The paramedics at the scene “declared the death of 2 women in their 20s and provided medical treatment to a 40-year-old woman in serious condition with multi-system injuries. An MDA-Hatzalah Air helicopter landed at the scene. Update to follow,” Israel’s national emergency medical service, Magen David Adom, said in a statement obtained by the Legal Insurrection.
The Israeli security forces have launched a manhunt for the Palestinian terrorist who reportedly fled the scene. Israel has witnessed similar drive-by terror attacks in recent months. The gunmen, often Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad members, find shelter in nearby Palestinian towns.
The Israeli news website Ynet reported the deadly terrorist shooting near Jericho:
Two sisters in their 20s were killed and a their mother was in critical condition on Friday in a drive-by shooting attack on the West Bank. The father who was traveling separately was witness to the shooting.Emergency teams said the car which was hit by bullets had lost control and crashed and hit another vehicle on the road.The IDF began a manhunt to apprehend the assailant’s vehicle while Palestinian sources say the two terrorists escaped the scene and Defense Minister Yoav Galant convened a security meeting with military and security officials.MDA paramedic Dennis Polkov said the young women were already dead when the emergency team arrived. “We pulled them out of the car but had to pronounce the dead and the third woman who was older, was suffering a multi-system failure and had to be given life-saving attention on the scene,” he said. She was later taken by a military chopper to a hospital in Jerusalem.
The rocket fire from southern Lebanon, which began on Thursday noon, continued overnight. Gaza-based terrorist groups, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), also fired rockets into southern Israel.
The IDF responded with artillery shelling and airstrikes on terrorist targets, including weapons factories and training camps.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
The IDF struck sites belonging to the Hamas terrorist movement in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon early Friday morning after dozens of rockets were fired towards Israel in recent days and as dozens more were fired overnight from Gaza.In southern Lebanon, three targets belonging to the Hamas movement were hit. According to Lebanese reports, the sites were located in the vicinity of al-Qulayla and the al-Rashidiah refugee camp, south of Tyre. No injuries were reported in the strikes. (…)In the Gaza Strip, the IDF struck at least ten targets belonging to Hamas, including tunnels and weapons production facilities, with 50 tons of bombs.During the strikes, at least 40 rockets were fired from Gaza towards southern Israel. One of the rockets fell on a home in Sderot and 14 fell in open areas. No injuries were caused by the rocket fire.
The Israeli military is mobilizing troops as it gears up for further escalation along the country’s northern and southern borders. “Israel Defense Forces announced it will call up an unspecified number of reservist soldiers amid heightened tensions across the region,” the Israeli TV channel i24news reported Friday. “The call-up is intended to boost air defense units and the Central Command.”
The multipronged terror offensive against Israel comes as the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan coincides with the Jewish festival of Passover. The IDF believes that Palestinian terrorist groups are carrying out coordinated rocket attacks on Israel in conjunction with the ongoing Muslim rioting on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
“Israeli military said the rocket fire on its northern and southern fronts was carried out by Palestinian terrorists in connection to this week’s violence at Al-Aqsa,” the Israel Hayom newspaper reported Friday. “In a briefing with reporters, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said the army drew a clear connection between the Lebanese rocket fire and the recent unrest in Jerusalem.”
On Thursday, Palestinians in Jerusalem were seen celebrating the latest round of terrorist attacks on innocent Israelis. Following the noon prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount, “hundreds of people gather[ed] and wave[d] Hamas and Palestinian flags, calling chants supporting a deadly terror attack in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley in which two Israeli sisters were killed,” The Times of Israel reported Friday. “They also praise[d] Lebanon, from where dozens of rockets were launched yesterday at Israel in the worst cross-border violence since 2006.”
A Palestinian mob was also seen throwing stones from the Temple Mount, trying to hit the Jewish worshipers visiting the holy site during Passover. “A group of Palestinians threw stones toward the Mughrabi Gate on the Western Wall and chanted inciting slogans at al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on Friday morning, shortly after the dawn prayers at the site,” the Jerusalem Post reported. “The police published footage showing the Palestinians gathering the rocks and throwing them on the Temple Mount.”
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