An Israeli woman, Inga Avramyan, 80, was killed, and eight people were injured, when a shell fired from the Gaza Strip hit an apartment building in Rehovot, in central Israel.
According to Israeli sources, Inga Avramyan was killed after being trapped under rubble that fell from the damaged building. Seven people were treated on-site with light injuries, and one woman in her sixties was taken to the hospital with a head injury.
The Israeli military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, stated that the Israeli anti-missile defense system known as the ‘Iron Dome’ (funded largely by the United States), had experienced a malfunction on Thursday night.
The Israeli military’s “Home Front Command” Search and Rescue Unit was joined by police, Fire and Rescue Services to search in the rubble for additional victims, but no other injured Israelis were found.
The shell had been fired after three straight days of Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which resulted in the deaths of 31 Palestinians, including a number of young children and women.
The chair of the Israeli Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yuli Edelstein, condemned the death of the Israeli woman, saying, “My heart goes out to the family of the murdered person from the missile strike, and I am praying for the recovery of those injured.”
Edelstein went on to say, “The responsibility for the criminal and cowardly strike and murder lies with one source: Iran – the patron and financier of the Islamic Jihad. There lies the head of the snake, and we will work in every way to remove this threat from the people of Israel.”
Edelstein made no mention of the dozens of Palestinian civilians that Israeli bombs had killed over the past three days.
In addition to the shell that hit the building in Rehovot, three Israeli buildings in Sderot, near the border with Gaza, were hit by Palestinian shells, but no injuries were reported.
Note: This story has been updated with the name of the woman, which was originally unknown. (Source)
