Photo Credit: Israel Police
House in Sderot struck by Qassam rocket fired from Gaza on Friday, August 8, 2014.

A Qassam rocket slammed directly into a private home in the Gaza Belt community of Sderot at around 3:30 pm Friday afternoon, just a few hours before the start of the Sabbath. It was the second home in Sderot to be hit by a rocket today. No one was physically injured in the attack.

This is the second home to be damaged in a Qassam rocket barrage from Gaza today (Friday, August 8, 2014). Miraculously, no one was home.

The Code Red rocket alert system allows residents of the communities in the Gaza Belt area – those in the Eshkol, Sdot Negev and Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council districts – only a 15-second window within which to reach a safe space before rocket impact.

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Less than half an hour after the house in Sderot was hit, a home in the coastal city of Ashkelon suffered the same fate.

As in Sderot, however, the terrorist rocket found no victims; the owners of the home were safe in a shelter and were not physically injured, although the building was damaged. Residents of Ashkelon have a window of 30 seconds within which to reach shelter before an attack.

A few hours earlier, the director of Sapir Academic College, Dr. Nachmi Paz, age 71, was wounded by shrapnel when a Qassam rocket exploded at the entrance to the community. A 20-year-old soldier also sustained shrapnel wounds in the same attack. Both running for shelter but weren’t quite fast enough when the rocket slammed into the ground nearby. Sapir College is located in an area on the outskirts of Sderot.

More than 50 rocketswere fired at Israel by Gaza terrorists in the past eight hours, since the 72-hour humanitarian cease fire ended at 8 am. Four Israelis were wounded.

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Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.