The Israeli Air Force bombed a weapons manufacturing site and a terror tunnel Friday night following further Hamas rocket attacks on the Western Negev,
despite announcements by the terrorist organization and its allies they would cease the rocket attacks. Gaza-based terrorists continued to attack Israel after the Air Force bombings, firing two rockets Saturday night. One of them exploded in an open area south of Ashkelon.
It was the second retaliation in three days and the third in a week. No one was wounded in the six raids, at least two of them scoring direct hits on terrorist targets. A smuggling tunnel was bombed in the area of Rafiah, the city that straddles the border between Gaza and Egypt, and a weapons factory in northern Gaza was targeted.
More than 50 rockets have exploded in the Negev since the beginning of 2010, and more than 350 rockets were fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza into Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead last year,.
Israel agreed to end the counterterrorism war after the United States promised to set up a monitoring system in the Sinai that was supposed to stop the smuggling network that has enabled Hamas to stockpile advanced arms and rockets, including missiles that can down Israeli planes.
In a separate incident on the Sabbath, six Arabs in Gaza were killed from an explosion of a gas canister that was being smuggled through a tunnel under the Egyptian border.