RAMALLAH: Around 4:45 pm on Saturday afternoon two rockets from the Gaza Strip were fired on Tel Aviv. Warning sirens rang out in Tel Aviv and a two loud crashes were heard, several sources in the city have told BikyaMasr.com. Felestin Al-Yom, a Palestinian news channel, said that two rockets hit Tel Aviv, although Ha'aretz and other Israeli sources reporting that the Iron Dome defense system intercepted them. “We heard the sirens and ran as fast as we could to the shelter," Caroline, an American student in Tel Aviv, told BikyaMasr.com. “One of the rockets dropped in a cemetery near the beach in Jaffa," another witness told BikyaMasr.com, though this has yet to be officially confirmed. “I saw two rockets," said Ansam, a resident of Jaffa, the mixed Arab-Jewish city south of Tel Aviv. She continued: “We saw one in the air and it looked like it exploded while it was still in flight. There was grey smoke, and one minute afterwards the next one came. It sounded like a big bomb and we felt the ground shake, apparently south of us on the Jaffa beach." “We heard the sirens in Tel Aviv from Ramat Aviv," wrote 20-year-old student Mohammed Abu Toameh, referring to suburb north of Tel Aviv. “We heard the boom and the streets were filled with firefighters," he added. Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, took credit for the two rockets fired on Tel Aviv Saturday afternoon. It is the third time Gazan militias have been able to reach Tel Aviv, and Friday marked the first instance in which rockets from Gaza landed near Jerusalem. Earlier in the day, the Israeli army confirmed that a residential area in Ashdod was successfully struck by rockets, though no deaths were reported. At 5:15 pm, Ha'aretz reported that the Iron Dome intercepted an additional five rockets over Ashkelon. Rockets from Gaza killed three Israelis on Thursday morning, and several have been injured. Saturday is the fourth day of Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense offensive against the Gaza Strip. Israeli military forces have amassed in southern Israel to prepare for a ground invasion into Gaza. Over 650 rockets have been fired from Gaza since Wednesday. On Friday a measured was approved to raise the cap of reservist soldiers to 75,000. As of Saturday morning, Israeli Air Forces claimed to have struck over 850 sites across the densely populated Gaza Strip, including Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's office. The Palestinian death toll reached 40 when Mohammed Yasin, a resident of Gaza City, died around 1:45 pm from injuries sustained by an Israeli airstrike. Injuries are in the hundreds, and Gaza's hospitals are reportedly operating on a critical shortage of medical supplies.
