Five Wounded, 1 Critically, as Rocket Hits Ashdod Bus Stop

Jerusalem Post
December 29, 2008

http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/551/five-wounded-1-critically-as-rocket-hits-ashdod

Five Israelis were wounded on Monday night - one critically, one seriously and three lightly - when a rocket fired by Gaza terrorists hit an Ashdod bus stop.

The casualties were evacuated to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.

The rocket was one of over 70 fired at southern Israel Monday.

Also Monday night, six people were wounded - one critically, one seriously, one moderately and three lightly - when a mortar shell struck the western Negev.

In another attack earlier Monday, Hanni Al-Mahdi, 27, of the Beduin town of Aroer in the Negev, was killed and at least 14 people were wounded when a Grad-type missile hit a construction site in Ashkelon's center.

Of the wounded, five were reported to be in moderate-to-serious condition and the rest were lightly wounded. Several people were sent into shock by the attack.

According to Channel 2, the missile hit the top floor of the building, which did not yet have a roof.

Magen David Adom ambulances evacuated all the casualties to the city's Barzilai Hospital.

Most of the people at the site were Arab construction workers from Rahat and the Manda village in the Galilee.

Following the attack, Hamas's military wing called on Egyptian and Jordanian citizens working in Israel to leave all Israeli cities, Army Radio reported.

Hamas took responsibility for firing the missile and reported that a "Zionist" was killed in the attack.

Moussa, a construction worker from Kfar Manda who was lightly wounded in the Ashkelon attack, told Army Radio that there were about twelve workers at the site at the time of the attack.

Moussa said a public library was being constructed there, and added that the work at the site had been underway for several years.

In Sderot, several people suffered from shock after their house sustained a direct hit from a rocket.

The IDF on Monday morning declared the area along the Gaza border a closed military zone, denying entrance to all but local residents.

The ban included journalists. However, it was not clear how effectively the order was being upheld, as a correspondent for the British Sky News network was seen reporting from the border in the late morning.

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