It is reported that in the overwhelming number of sorties carried out by the Israel Air Force on the night of 28 Menachem Av, Wednesday night to Thursday, the buildings, terrorist military bases, warehouses and training facilities were empty, as Hamas soldiers were expecting the aerial assaults and left ahead of them.

Many southern community residents and leaders, who spent another night in bomb shelters and sustained significant property damage from the over 150 rockets fired into Israel, are calling on Israel to strike Hamas hard and not just empty buildings, hard enough to bring an end to the rocket fire once and for all.

Channel 2 News reports that the Hamas leadership has fled Gaza entirely, including politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh, all hiding currently in Egypt. It is reported they fled on Wednesday afternoon in expectation for Israeli retaliatory strikes.

Since last night:
🔺Approx. 180 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at Israel.
🔺The Iron Dome aerial defense system intercepted over 30 launches. The majority of projectiles landed in open areas.
🔺In response, the IDF targeted over 150 terror targets in the Gaza Strip pic.twitter.com/BQtxfaT8Gn

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) August 9, 2018

Additionally, five training camps were targeted as well as a main warehouse and a meeting point used by the senior commanders of the Khan Yunis Brigade. Thus far, over 140 of Hamas' strategic military sites have been targeted

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) August 9, 2018

The last 13 hours in Israel.
Each of these alerts means an air raid siren sounded, signalling an incoming rocket from Gaza. Each of these alerts also meant that the people living in the area under attack from Gaza only had a few seconds to run for cover. #IsraelUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/uP5miNh8uS

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) August 9, 2018

😡😡😡

A post shared by TheYeshivaWorld.com (@theyeshivaworld) on Aug 9, 2018 at 5:32am PDT

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)