Israel’s Operation Breaking Dawn against Gaza-based Islamic Jihad (PIJ) entered its second day, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continuing to fire at targets in the Strip. In retaliation, through the night and continuing this morning, Israeli towns close to the border with Gaza came under rocket fire. Warning sirens have been sounding since last night in the southern Israeli villages near the Gaza border, the southern towns of Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Yavne, and also in the more central cities of Rishon Lezion, Holon and Bat Yam. Citizens in the communities near Gaza were instructed to stay near the shelters. Citizens in central-south cities were instructed to be sure their shelters are open in the event of sirens.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid convenes this evening the Security Cabinet for an update at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv. He has also invited opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu for a security briefing tomorrow morning.

Operation Breaking Dawn was launched yesterday afternoon. At precisely 4:16 p.m., the IDF pummeled seven stationary and moving targets in the Gaza Strip. The strike lasted 170 seconds (nearly three minutes). Its main target was a fourth-floor apartment in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, the hideout of Tayseer al-Jabari, chief of operations for the PIJ in Gaza who had spent the previous days seeking out Israeli targets for his group’s anti-tank missiles. Israel said it also hit two PIJ teams deployed on the ground who were waiting for an opportunity to launch their rockets.

Jabari was killed at once in the surgical strike by guided bombs on his apartment. All in all, according to Israeli estimates, 15 people were killed, most of them PIJ operatives preparing to strike Israel and, sadly, a 5-year-old Palestinian girl. That was the opening salvo of an apparently long-planned operation against the PIJ. The opening barrage was one of the most impressive in Israel’s long history of attrition with Gaza.