JERUSALEM
Israeli residents have been urged to stay home after sirens went off in Jerusalem late Tuesday.
"Remain in your protected area for 10 minutes, unless given instruction otherwise. After 10 minutes you can come out of your protected area," Jerusalem Municipality said in a statement.
The statement urged residents to "sit on the floor under the window line against the most interior wall available, opposite any windows."
The move shortly after three booms were heard in Jerusalem, minutes after sirens went off late Tuesday.
Israeli official did not explain whether it was rockets.
"Those not able to enter a building should lay on the ground and protect your head with your heads," the statement said.
Earlier Tuesday, Israel's Iron Dome missile-defense system intercepted a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip over Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial capital.
Violence raged in the Palestinian territories on Tuesday after Israel launched a military offensive – dubbed "Operation Protective Edge" – with the stated aim of staunching Gaza rocket fire.
At least 17 Palestinians were killed and scores injured in Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
The Israeli army said that its air and naval forces had struck scores of sites across the Gaza Strip overnight, while ground troops were being amassed on the strip's borders in advance of a possible ground incursion.
Gaza-based resistance factions, for their part, continued to fire rockets into Israel on Tuesday in response to ongoing Israeli airstrikes.
The latest escalations come amid heightened tension over the killing of three teenage Jewish settlers in the West Bank last month and the subsequent murder of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy by Jewish settlers.
By Turgut Alp Boyraz
www.aa.com.tr/en
