Hundreds of rockets were fired at southern and central Israel on Shabbos and a man in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan was killed in a direct rocket strike on a residential building.

“A large number of MDA members went door to door in Ramat Gan to search the damaged apartments,” Magen David Adom paramedic Lior Marmelstein said. “In one apartment we located an unconscious man in his 50s. After trying to revive him, we were forced to pronounce his death.”

The victim lived in an apartment without a sealed room and was killed by shrapnel that pierced his ground-floor apartment.

The rocket strike heavily damaged six buildings in Ramat Gan and started a fire. Two people were treated for smoke inhalation.

Another rocket struck Givat Shmuel, near Ramat Gan, damaging buildings and setting a car on fire. Shrapnel from rockets fell across central Israel, including in Holon, Rishon L’Tzion, Yavne, Beit Dagan, Kfar Chabad, Lod, and the Arab town of Taibe.

The Hamas terror group stated that the rockets launched toward Tel Aviv were in response to “the massacre of women and children at the Shati refugee camp.” At least 10 Palestinians were killed in an IDF airstrike on the camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Shabbos morning. The IDF said that the strike was aimed at an apartment that houses terror infrastructure for Hamas.

Overnight Friday, there were direct rockets hits in Ashdod, Be’er Sheva, and Sderot. An apartment building in Ashdod sustained a direct hit and another rocket hit a fuel reservoir in the Ashdod port, causing a huge explosion. Fortunately, no injures were reported.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)