Residents of Nahariya were not surprised Thursday morning when their city was hit by a barrage of Katyusha rockets from Lebanon as a second front appeared to open in the Gaza War. Four civilians were lightly wounded and several others were treated for several emotional trauma. Listeners calling in to radio stations after the rocket attack, which hit an old age home and several other areas in the city shortly after 7:30 a.m., spoke almost with a tone of relief, if not resignation. “I felt it in my gut last night as I watched television,” said Shimon Shakua, a caller interviewed on Radio Darom . “I knew it was coming. And sure enough, one of them landed a few meters from my window as I slept. I woke up to the explosion, ambulances all over the place – in short, the usual.” Shakua added that he was a little upset for a few minutes, “because the thing exploded right near my window. But then I calmed down. We grew up with this. We don’t get excited, you know. I called my family to let them know I’m okay.” He had to use a neighbor’s phone, though, because his own had stopped working. A woman who had sent her children to school said there was some confusion in the city, because most residents were not prepared – and the municipality appeared not to be either. “No one prepared anything, because Home Front Command said they would warn us if it became clear that there was going to be a threat in the north,” Miri Green said. “At this point I am sure they have received instructions to prepare the public shelters, but there is a lot of confusion. Some schools did not open, some did.” She added that she personally was unsurprised. “For a week already I have been ready for this. I have been going around certain that this would happen,” she said. “We knew that something was up.” Northern District Police ordered residents in the western Galilee region to enter the shelters following the Nahariya attack. The order was expected to remain in effect until Home Front Command clarified the situation. The Lebanese Al-Manar television network, affiliated with the Hizbullah terrorist organization, announced an official denial of responsibility for the attack by the group, which said it had no connection with the rocket launches. Hizbullah has been warned repeatedly by Israel not to test the resolve of the IDF while it is engaged in operations in Gaza. At the outset of Operation Cast Lead, in response to threats by Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, IAF warplanes flew over Lebanon a number of times to make it clear to the group that Israel was ready to respond if Hizbullah attempted to open a second front in the Gaza War.
