The IDF is looking into the possibility that rockets which exploded in the Eshkol Regional Council Friday evening were fired fromEgypt's Sinai Peninsula, army official said.
If the suspicions prove true, the attack would mark the second time in two days that rockets were fired toward Israel from Sinai. On Wednesday, shortly before the IDF killed Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari in Gaza and launched Operation Pillar of Defense, four rockets exploded in an Israeli community located near the Egyptian border. Israel suspects that they were fired from Sinai. There were no reports of injury or damage in the attack. The Color Red siren, which alerts residents of incoming projectiles, was not sounded.
Egyptian newspaper Al-Shorouk reported Friday that the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC) in the Environs of Jerusalem, an al Qaeda-linked group in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, claimed responsibility for the launching of five rockets. These were apparently the rockets that were fired at Israel on Wednesday.
The report said the rockets were launched from the northern part of Sinai, adding that a video clip shows that the rockets were fired from 107-millimeter rocket launchers, similar to the ones being used by Palestinian terror groups in Gaza. Al-Shorouk further reported that the rockets "hit their targets."
The past three years have seen a number of rocket attacks emanating from Sinai, but most of those attacks have targeted Eilat, Israel's southernmost city. The Sinai Peninsula has become a hotbed of terror activity and lawlessness since the ouster of Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak. Terror groups in the region have carried out several attacks against Israeli targets.
In August 2011 eight Israelis were killed in a terror attack on Route 12 leading to Eilat, and in August of this year terrorists in Sinai murdered 15 Egyptian policemen and broke through Israel's border fence with a stolen armored carrier.
Ynet News
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