Long Range Rockets Fired Into Israel

In what Ynet news is calling an escalation, longer range rockets carrying larger explosive warheads have been launched by Hezbollah into Israel. Fortunately, the five rockets hit empty fields. However, these are the first long range rockets seen thus far in the two week old war.

Police officials said that on Friday noon Hizbullah fired at Israel, for the first time since the fighting in the north began, five long-range missiles carrying a greater amount of explosives than the Pajar rockets of the type that has been fired so far. The missiles landed in open areas near Afula and in the area between Afula and Beit Shean. No injuries were reported in the attack.

A short while later sirens were heard in the Haifa and Krayot area and residents were ordered into shelters and protected areas. Some rockets landed in open areas near Haifa. In a separate barrage a rocket landed in Nahariya, hitting a vehicle that immediately caught fire. Another rocket struck a public building in town and damaged it. No injuries were reported in the attacks.

Up until today, in 17 days of fighting, dozens of 22o millimeter-diameter rockets were fired at Israel, including several Pajar-3 rockets. A police official said Friday that the missiles that landed in Afula today were "of an unknown type, something between the Pajar-3 and the Zilzal missile."

He added that sappers are currently working to identify the missile, and to establish the amount of explosives it was carrying and to what distance it is capable of reaching.

Ynet has learned that some of the rockets fired in the barrages on the Western Galilee on Thursday included 220 millimeter-diameter rockets. Up until now Hizbullah had launched these rockets only at Haifa. One of them had hit a train depot and killed eight employees at the place.

Here's a map so you can see the difference in distances. Afula has been Underlined:

(Note: The word Palestine that can be seen at the bottom of the picture refers to the West Bank area, not the map of Israel as a whole. The label Israel is cut off in this zoomed shot.)