Day 19, Hizbullah bombs northern communities once again: A rocket barrage was fired at the Ma'a lot area Sunday afternoon. The rockets landed in open areas, without causing injuries.
Earlier, two people were lightly hurt by shrapnel and 36 people suffered from shock Sunday morning after a rocket directly hit a building in Akko. Another seven rockets landed in open areas in the city without causing injuries.
Another person was lightly hurt by a rocket in Kiryat Shmona. Two people were treated for shock.
Building in Kiryat Shmona directly hit (Photo: Niv Calderon)
Following another Katyusha barrage that landed in the Kiryat Shmona and Upper Galilee area, firefighters dealt with four fires, one of them in the Banias nature reserve.
Akko residents woke up three times Sunday morning to the sounds of sirens. In the third time, a barrage of about eight rockets landed in the city. Four of the rockets fell in the area, causing heavy damage.
Yael Magal, who lives in a multi-story building near one of the rocket falling sites, said that she went back to sleep after the first two sirens, and was awaken by the third siren.
"I hurried to the reinforced room, and at the moment I closed the door there was a huge explosion. I knew it was next to us but I was alone in the apartment and I was afraid to come out. Only several minutes later I dared to go downstairs and see what happened," she recounted.
Her apartment is located on the rear part of the building and the explosion took place on the front of the buildings. Therefore, the apartment was not badly damaged. Apartments facing the front were seriously damaged, as well as the entrance to the house.
Two vehicles parked in the street caught fire. Eyewitnesses said that one driver got out of the car moments before the explosion.
In other sites in Akko rockets landed far from the houses, so the damage was lighter. However, many frightened residents, Jews and Arabs, gathered in the yards of their houses, near the bomb shelters.
Car hit by rocket in Akko (Photo: Ahiya Raved)
Four rocket barrages landed Sunday morning at around 7 a.m. near Kiryat Shmona. The police reported of at least 25 rockets falling in the area. One rocket directly hit a public building in Kiryat Shmona. The building was empty and there were no reports of injuries.
Other rockets were located in open areas in the city and its surroundings. Another rocket hit a wall of another building in the city. There were no injuries in the incident.
In addition, two barrages were fired at the Western Galilee and Tiberias. All the rockets were located in open areas and there were no reports of injuries or damage.
A rocket barrage fired at Akko also hit buildings in the city.
Kiryat Shmona bombed (Photo: Niv Calderon)
Simultaneously, a siren was heard in Haifa, the surrounding areas, Safed, Akko, Afula, Rosh Pina and Carmiel, and residents were called to enter bomb shelters and reinforced rooms. However, there were no reports of rockets falling in the area.
SLA members: We are being screwed again and again
Hanna Salame, a resident of the house directly hit in Kiryat Shmona, is a former South Lebanon Army fighter.
"There were seven people in the house when the rocket hit. It fell outside the house but caused a lot of damage."
Salame had a lot of complaints regarding the way the residents are being treated.
"There has been a war for 20 days now and now one has asked us if we need help. They left us behind. We don’t even have a ventilator in the shelter. Only in the past few days the municipality did me a favor and sprayed the place against fleas," he said.
According to Salame, "if God wouldn’t have helped we would have died from the rocket. This is the state that gave Hizbullah six years to become strong and now we cannot gain control over them. The person responsible for this situation is only Ehud Barak."
Johnny, a former SLA member, whose house was also hit by a rocket, said that he and his family were left without any help.
"This country should be ashamed. No one is coming to help us. We were screwed in Lebanon and because we are from the SLA we are being screwed again. I have been in a shelter for 20 days. I call for help every day. They didn’t even give us water. We have been abandoned," he said.
On Friday, for the first time since the fighting in the north began, Hizbullah fired five long-range missiles with a larger amount of explosives than the rockets that had been fired at Israel so far. The Fajr-5 missiles landed in open areas in the Afula area and in the area between Afula and the Beit Shean Valley. There were no reports of injuries.
A medical institution in the Akko area suffered heavy damage Saturday as a result of a rocket barrage fired at the area. There were no reports of injuries in the area.
A six-rocket barrage was fired at Nahariya, where one person was lightly wounded by shrapnel and three suffered from shock. The rockets directly hit a building, and fires started in four places.
Three people were lightly injured by shrapnel after four rocket barrages hit the city. Some landed in open areas and some hit the city itself. Magen David Adom crews attended to nine people, including three who were lightly hurt by shrapnel and six who suffered from shock.
Another barrage was fired at a community near Ma'alot, but there were no injuries or damage there.
Three rockets landed in Carmiel on Saturday evening. There were no reports of injuries or damage in the area. Earlier, a barrage of seven rockets landed in the Tiberias area. The rockets fell on a road leading to the city and in open areas, and another rocket hit a building in an industrial zone in the area. One person suffered from shock, and there were no reports of damage.
Two barrages were fired Saturday evening at open areas near Kiryat Shmona. The Safed area also suffered from three barrages. One of the rockets landed in a nearby community, starting a fire. Firefighters worked to put it out and prevent it from spreading to the nearby community.
The police reported on Saturday that since the onset of the fighting in the north until Saturday afternoon, 1,731 rockets landed on Israeli territory, 432 of them in urban areas. More than 90 rockets were fired at the north since Saturday morning.
Since the fighting began, 19 civilians have been killed, 26 were seriously injured, 40 were moderately injured, 350 sustained light wounds and 677 suffered from shock and anxiety. Some 43 people are still hospitalized after being hit by rockets.
Ahiya Raved, Hagai Einav and Roee Mendel contributed to the report
First published: 07:28, 07.30.6