Iron Dome interception near Ashdod (Archives)
Photo: Avi Roccah
False air raid sirens sound in south
Air raid sirens that sounded around 1:20 am in Sderot, Gan Yavne, Ashkelon, Ashdod, were false, result of malfunction; IDF looking into systems
After two months of peace, since Operation Pillar of Defense
ended, residents of the south, from Ashdod to Sderot, were woken up by air raid sirens around 1:20 am Saturday. The sirens went off, however, due to a technical malfunction, police and IDF
said.
The sirens sounded in Gan Yavne, Gedera, Kiryat Gat and Ashkelon as all residents of the region rushed to fortified spaces.
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Once it was clear that it had been a false alarm, Ilan, an Ashdod resident, told Ynet: "The siren caught me on my way back home. I was in my car… I rolled down my window and realized it was a siren…" Ilan ran out to a nearby building and stayed there until the siren was over.
Sagi Aharon of Gan Yavne knew it was a false alarm. "Nevertheless," he told Ynet, "my family and I weren’t indifferent, because we don't really know what's going on in the north, with Hezbollah" referring to recent tension near the Syrian and Lebanese borders.
During Operation Pillar of Defense, which started on November 14, 2012 and ended eight days later, over 1,500 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, bringing about an endless series of air raid sirens in the south.
Yoav Zitun contributed to this report
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