{"id":37301,"date":"2019-03-25T13:23:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T13:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=37301"},"modified":"2019-03-25T13:23:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T13:23:25","slug":"netanyahu-to-cut-us-trip-short-after-rocket-attack-near-tel-aviv-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=37301","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu to cut US trip short after rocket attack near Tel Aviv"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Hamas official denies firing rocket near Tel Aviv, new Israeli troops headed for Gaza<\/h2>\n
\n

\nMISHMERET\/JERUSALEM: Hamas official denied firing the rocket that hit a house near Tel Aviv on Monday.<\/p>\n

\n“No one from the resistance movements, including Hamas, has an interest in firing rockets from the Gaza Strip towards the enemy,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that the same message had been delivered to Egypt, which has acted as mediator between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n

\nThe Israeli military said on Twitter the rocket had been fired from the Rafah area in the southern Gaza Strip.
\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\nWe can confirm that #Hamas<\/a> is responsible for firing a homemade rocket. It flew a distance of 75 miles across Israel and then destroyed this home: pic.twitter.com\/nXytl8hcfl<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) March 25, 2019<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nMajor\u00a0Mika Lifshitz, a military spokesperson, says two armor and infantry brigades were being mobilized to the area around the Hamas-run enclave and there is a limited drafting of reserves underway following the attack.<\/p>\n

\nThe Israeli military also said it will halt agricultural work near the security fence that separates Israel from the Gaza Strip “to improve readiness” for an escalation.<\/p>\n

\nThe military added that it would block routes and areas on the Israeli side of the fence and requested that residents “follow security instructions as long as necessary.”<\/p>\n

\nMeanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that he is to cut short his trip to the United States due to the attack.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIn light of the security events I decided to cut short my visit to the US,\u201d Netanyahu said, calling the attack a heinous crime that would draw a strong Israeli response.<\/p>\n

\nHe said he would meet with President Donald Trump in the coming hours and then fly back immediately.<\/p>\n

\nThe rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a house in a community north of Tel Aviv and caused it to catch fire, wounding seven Israelis, authorities and medics said.<\/p>\n

\nThe incident\u00a0raised the risk of another escalation between the two sides just ahead of April 9 Israeli elections.<\/p>\n

\nThe house hit was located in the community of Mishmeret, police said. Medics said they were treating one Israeli with moderate wounds and four others injured lightly.<\/p>\n

\nMishmeret is more than 80 kilometers from the Gaza Strip and rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave at that distance is rare.<\/p>\n

\nMonday\u2019s incident comes after two rockets were fired from Gaza toward Tel Aviv \u2014 also rare \u2014 on March 14.<\/p>\n

\nNo damage or injuries were caused, but Israel responded to that and further rocket fire by hitting what it said were around 100 Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

\nFour Palestinians were reported wounded in those strikes.<\/p>\n

\nBoth Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad denied they were behind the March 14 rocket fire toward Tel Aviv, raising the possibility they were launched by fringe groups.<\/p>\n

\nIsrael\u2019s military said they were launched by Hamas, but later there were Israeli media reports that the army\u2019s preliminary assessment was that they had been fired by mistake during maintenance work.<\/p>\n

\nThe reports were a sign that Israel was seeking to calm tensions. The military had refused to comment on the reports at the time.<\/p>\n

\nMonday\u2019s rocket comes just days ahead of the March 30 one-year anniversary of Palestinian protests and clashes along the Gaza Strip\u2019s border with Israel.<\/p>\n

\nAn informal truce between Hamas and Israel had led to relative calm along the border of the blockaded strip, but recent weeks have seen another uptick in violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hamas official denies firing rocket near Tel Aviv, new Israeli troops headed for Gaza MISHMERET\/JERUSALEM: Hamas official denied firing the rocket that hit a house near Tel Aviv on Monday. “No one from the resistance movements, including Hamas, has an interest in firing rockets from the Gaza Strip towards the enemy,” the official told AFP…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}