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Following Escalation, A Hamas Rocket Knocks Down Lines Providing Power to Gaza Residents

Following a barrage of nearly 200 rockets and mortars fired into Israel on Saturday, an errant rocket fell short and knocked out electrical lines carrying power into Gaza, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) reported Monday.

According to COGAT, initially workers were unable to approach  the downed lines due to fire from Hamas, but eventually were able to repair the lines.

Following the Saturday escalation by Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups, the IDF responded with what was described as the most extensive Israeli bombing campaign against terror targets inside the Gaza Strip since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, The Times of Israel reported Sunday.

Three Israelis were reported injured and a number of buildings were reported damaged. The majority of the projectiles fell in open areas and 30 were reportedly intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.

The IDF said that it struck a number of Hamas targets including two cross-border terror tunnels, and a training facility for urban combat.

Israel struck at two Hamas facilities on Monday as Palestinians continued launching incendiary kites and balloons into Israel.

Reiterating a sentiment he had expressed on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, “To us, there is no such thing as a ceasefire that excludes the incendiary kites and balloons. No such thing. I’ll say this for the seventh time and I hope it gets through, but if it’s not understood by my words, it will be understood by the IDF’s actions.”

A rocket from Gaza also knocked out power lines into Gaza in late May of this year.

The increased attacks on southern Israel by Hamas come at a time when the Palestinians lack an effective leadership to make peace with Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas diverts millions of dollars in aid to pay terrorists and their families rather than building a consensus for peaceful coexistence with Israel.

As Abbas’s career winds down, The Israel Project President and CEO Josh Block wrote Friday in The Jerusalem Post, the PA “can help shape history or watch as history is being written without it. It can work with the US, Israel and Arab states to bring prosperity to the region, or risk widespread isolation.”

Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip with an iron grip, is also leading its people to a dead end, orchestrating terror instead of building peace.

[Photo: Wochit News / YouTube ]