Shrapnel impact from rocket explosion in front yard of Ashkelon residential home. Photo: Anav Silverman.

JNS.org – An Israeli teenager suffered serious shrapnel wounds to his face and chest during a Gaza rocket attack on Ashkelon on Sunday.

The teen had failed to enter a bomb shelter when a warning siren sounded. Besides for the rocket that struck the boy’s residential neighborhood, another rocket fired at Ashkelon was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, and a third rocket hit an open area.

“The residents must be vigilant,” Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni said, according to Israel Hayom. “You have to be patient, and follow directions.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at his cabinet meeting on Sunday, “Hamas has chosen to attack our cities with massive, indiscriminate rocket fire. I said from the start [of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza] that we would respond with force to these criminal attacks on our citizens, and that is what we are doing.”