The man killed Thursday morning by a Palestinian mortar shell attack has been identified as 51-year-old Amnon Rosenberg of Kibbutz Nirim. Rosenberg, a member of the kibbutz since 1982, is survived by a wife, Tali, and three children – Dor, Eldar and Yarden.
Hamas' Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades have claimed responsibility for the firing of the mortar, which crashed into the Nirlat factory in Kibbutz Nir Oz, which is located within Eshkol Regional Council limits.
Five other employees sustained light-to-moderate shrapnel wounds and were evacuated to the Soroka Hospital in Beersheba for treatment. Several people were reported as suffering from shock at the scene.
"We oversaw the care of five people, three suffering various shrapnel injuries, one who was lightly hurt and one person suffering shock," MDA paramedic Itzik Alfasi told Ynet. "Unfortunately, we had no choice but to pronounce one man dead at the scene."
Head of the trauma center at Soroka, Dr. Gadi Shaked added the hospital was caring for "four patients, one suffering serious wounds to his back, another suffering moderate shrapnel-induced chest wounds and two men suffering superficial injuries."
The mortar, a 120mm shell, hit a Nirlat Groups facility, located in Nir Oz. the council's security director and security forces swept the area, but no further injuries were reported.
On Tuesday five people, including two foreign workers, sustained shrapnel injuries during a rocket attack on an Eshkol Regional Council community. The IDF later hit a Palestinian terrorist as he was attempting to fire another Qassam toward the western Negev region.
Ambulance that evacuated wounded from Nir Oz (Photo: Herzl Yosef)
Tuesday also saw a 107mm Katyusha rocket land within Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council limits. No injuries or damage were reported were reported in that incident.
Gaza: 4-year-old girl said killed
Palestinian doctors reported Thursday that a 4-year-old girl has been killed and her mother wounded in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip.
Hamas security said the IDF targeted a group of gunmen in the southern Gaza Strip but missed them. Relatives of the girl said that she and her mother were in the yard of a house that was hit by the errant
missile.
The army confirmed the strike and said forces had targeted a gunman in the area from which the mortar attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz was launched. "This is not the first time that terror organizations have no qualms about carrying out terror attacks using any means possible. They use areas where civilians reside and by doing so endanger them – and then point their fingers towards Israel," said military sources.
Ali Waked and Hanan Greenberg contributed to this report
First published: 12:11, 06.05.8