7-Sep-12: Two more GRAD rockets fired from Gaza crash and explode in Israel's Sedot Negev region

Netivot, 2008 - an earlier rocket attack by "liberation
forces" of Gaza [Image Source]

At about dawn this morning (Friday), shortly after Islamic morning prayer time, a pair of GRAD missiles fired from Gaza by one of the endless list of ad hoc terror "organizations" crashed into open fields in southern Israel's Sedot Negev region. The reports say no injuries and no significant damage, but people in the entire region started their day tothe sound of a missile warning, and the terrorists will surely be trying for a better result, starting immediately.

The same area came under Gazan rocket fire on Sunday [see "2-Sep-12: Mid-morning rocket attack - second of the day"]. 

A Palestinian Arab newsagency this week attributed earlier rocket attacks on the area to the "armed wing" of the "Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine", a member organization of the Palestine Liberation Organization headed by the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas. The DFLP used to be classified as a terrorist organization by the US State Dept., but lost its designation in 1999 as a result of not doing enough terror [Wikipedia]; its leadership may be making another run at the title.

The Sedot Negev region is in the northwest of Israel's Negev desert. Its 7,000 residents live in 12 moshav communities, 2 kibbutzim and 2 community settlements, all of them affiliated with the Hapoel Hamizrahi national religious movement.  This morning's rockets exploded in agricultural fields [Walla/Hebrew], narrowly missing [Times of Israel] the desert city of Netivot, population 27,000 and located 20 km from the border with Gaza.

Gazan GRAD rockets (the name is Russian for hail) have been deployed against Israeli civilian targets since 2008. Each rocket is 122 mm long, and has a range of about 40 km. When fired from the terror-rich Gaza Strip, they can easily reach Ashdod, Beer-Sheva, Ofakim, Gedera, Kiryat Gat, Ashkelon, Sderot, Rehovot, Kiryat Malachi and Gan Yavne among other southern Israeli communities.