Post date: Nov 18, 2012 5:4:15 PM
An Israeli hospital moves its patients to a safe area to protect them from ongoing barrages of rockets fired from Gaza.
OFAKIM, ISRAEL (NOVEMBER 18, 2012) (REUTERS) - Palestinian rocket salvoes launched from the Gaza Strip continued to poundIsrael for a fifth day on Sunday (November 18), causing damage but no casualties.
One of the rockets hit a house in the southern Israeli city of Ofakim.Israel continued to bomb Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion while also spelling out its conditions for a truce.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that he does not expect the conflict with Hamasin Gaza to end soon.
"This effort could not have been concluded without the generous and consistent support of the American administration led by President Obama," Barak told reporters during a visit he held with U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro to an "Iron Dome" rocket shield battery near Tel Aviv.
Earlier on Sunday, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired two rockets at Tel Aviv which were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome air shield, witnesses and police said.
Gaza's Hamas militants said they launched two Iranian-designed Fajr-5 rockets atIsrael's commercial capital, which has come under several such salvoes since cross-border fighting with the Palestinian enclave erupted on Wednesday.
Barzilai Hospital in southern Israel moved its patients into a shelter on Sunday as the situation escalated for the fifth day. Medical staff moved the patients to fortified wards after air raid sirens were heard in the area.
"We try to give a good treatment to all the citizens of the world, including the Palestinian people, and we want some peace, that's all, for them and for us," a nurse at the hospital said.
Doctors and paramedics managed to keep patients at ease, providing them with medical treatment, and taking all safety measures needed for the situation.
"We are standing here in front of a hundred and fifty million dollars in concrete, supposed to be the safest place in the world, but here we are sitting on the border withGaza, building a fully fortified and sheltered facility, in order to treat Palestinians from theGaza Strip, IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians," said Lama Loul, public affairs director atBarzilai Hospital.
Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has bedevilled Israeli border towns for years and is now displaying greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the crosshairs.