On Jan. 15, sirens blared in Israel’s Gaza border communities, alerting residents to incoming rockets from Gaza. Israel’s anti-missile Iron Dome system intercepted two of them and another two fell in open spaces without inflicting casualties or causing damage. In response, Israeli air force jets bombed Hamas targets in the northern Gaza Strip in a raid described in Gaza as the heaviest since the November 2019 clash that followed Israel’s killing of a senior Islamic Jihad commander, Baha Abu al-Atta.
Israel believes the rockets were launched by rogue Islamic Jihad militants, but directed its military retaliation at Hamas. The military said it held Hamas responsible, as ruler of the Strip, for all violence emanating from the enclave. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are gearing up for additional rockets, and Iron Dome batteries have been deployed in the south.
