Security tensions with Hamas continue to increase, and on Saturday residents of the western Negev were confronted with 35 separate fires caused by explosives-laden balloons released by Hamas operatives, as well as a Color Red alert on Saturday night.
The alert was sounded in Kibbutz Nir Am, Sderot, Ibim, and Kibbutz Erez. One rocket were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip but landed inside Gaza, failing to penetrate Israeli airspace.
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The Fire and Rescue Services reported that most of the fires broke out in dry, unfarmed fields in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, the Eshkol Regional Council, and the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council, and that they were mostly small and posed no danger.
🚨 Air-raid sirens sounding in southern Israel 🚨 pic.twitter.com/ODwfCMvIFm
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) August 22, 2020
The IDF has deployed additional forces to the western Negev, as well as additional Iron Dome batteries. The military is preparing for a possible escalation, but hopes that the situation will calm down.
On Saturday, the IDF's Southern Command held a situation assessment. Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, and other senior officials from the IDF and the Shin Bet security agency discussed recent developments, particularly in light of the 12 rockets fired from Gaza overnight between Thursday and Friday, one of which hit a home in Sderot.
The IDF thinks that Hamas fired the rockets, rather than allowing one of the rogue terrorist groups in Gaza to do it, as a response to the key Hamas targets that IDF aircraft destroyed in a series of airstrikes between Thursday and Friday morning as retaliation for the recent renewal of arson balloon terrorism.
At the end of the meeting, Gantz said, "The IDF is prepared, defending, and will continue to defend the residents of the south. It will attack those who attack us, and deal them a very harsh blow. The residents of Gaza are suffering under Hamas, and we will continue to defend the residents of the south and the citizens of Israel."
A Palestinian official in the Gaza Strip told Reuters on Friday that "The Egyptians, the Qataris and (UN Middle East envoy) Nickolay Mladenov have stepped up their efforts in order to restore calm, but calm can only come if Israel agrees to demands presented by Hamas and other factions," a Palestinian official told Reuters.
Mladenov's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Part of this article was originally published by i24NEWS.
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