Six Qassam rockets were fired towards Sderot on Thursday evening from northern Gaza, leaving none injured by damaging a synagogue. Several people were treated for shock and a fire that had broken out after a rocket crashed into a wheat field near a kibbutz in Shaar HaNegev Regional Council was put out.
Palestinian groups also fired three mortar shells at Kibbutz Nahal Oz in the western Negev earlier in the evening. No injuries were reported. Since Thursday morning eight mortar shells were fired altogether at the area.
A longer-range Grad rocket, similar to the one that wounded 15 in an Ashkelon shopping mall on Wednesday, was also launched, but it landed in an open area near Netivot. No injuries or damage were reported in both incidents.
Perhaps following Wednesday's incident, the IDF decided to hook up Netivot and six additional neighboring towns in the Negev to the 'Color Red' rocket alert system. The decision was made following a meeting of the Home Front Command, held due to the heavy artillery fired towards the Negev on Thursday.
However some Negev towns remain without connection to the rocket alert system, and the residents of some of these towns, threatened by daily rocket fire, decided to take matters into their own hands. The towns' security officers announced a new plan according to which they would personally alert residents of imminent rocket landings by SMS.
One security officer explained that the SMS would ask the residents to enter fortified rooms. "Usually a few minutes later, according to the information we receive, we tell them they can come out again," he said. He added that at times, the security officers functioned better than an alarm, because of their personal involvement in the communities.
"We live in the community, feel its pulse and are more alert to what goes on," he explained. "We activate the alert with the residents in mind."
The meeting of the Home Front Command was also summoned due to the rocket attack on Ashkelon's commercial center on Wednesday, after which the residents discovered that the city's alert system had been disconnected due to false alarms. After the attack the system was reactivated.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, his deputy Matan Vilnai, and Commander of the Home Front Command Brigadier General Yair Golan toured the site of the Askelon attack on Thursday morning.