All schools in southern Israel remained closed on Tuesday morning after more than 200 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory overnight.
The IDF Home Front Command on Monday ordered all education facilities within the 40-kilometer range to shut down and activity in facilities with no safe places to be suspended.
The decision came shortly after Hamas terrorists launched a barrage of rockets into Jerusalem and southern Israel in the latest escalation sparked by weeks of tensions in the capital.
Universities and colleges will also suspend on-campus learning, some telling students that classes will be held via Zoom.
Schools in the 80-kilometer range from the border, which do not have proper bomb shelters or secure spaces on the premises, will also be closed. Teachers, however, will conduct special classes via Zoom, meant to allow children to express their anxieties.
Local authorities within the 80-kilometer range ultimately have the final say in whether to allow education facilities to reopen even if they are equipped with shelters. Municipalities in Rishon Lezion, Bat-Yam and Holon, Rehovot and Ness Ziona already announced the schools in their cities will be shut on Tuesday.
According to the military order, workplaces within the 40-kilometer range from Gaza, without proper shelter must also remain shut and congregation will be restricted to no more than 10 people outdoors and 50 in confined spaces.
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Rockets being launched from Gaza toward Israeli communities on Tuesday morning
(Photo: Reuters)
In many local authorities further away from the border, kindergartens and elementary schools that do not have proper shelters will also be closed.
In the meantime, the Transportation Ministry said Tuesday that it was implementing changes to public transportation in areas adjacent to the Gaza border, including the city of Ashkelon where an apartment building sustained a direct hit from a rocket in the early hours of the morning.
IDF Spokesperson Brig. General Hidai Zilberman said in a press briefing early on Tuesday that the IDF attacked 130 terror targets in the Strip overnight.
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Damage caused by a rocket that hit a residential building in Ashkelon
(Photo: Shaul Golan)
Zilberman said the IDF strikes will continue and intensify and that the military will not stop its strikes until Hamas is impacted considerably. "It will be a matter of days and not hours," the spokesperson said.