Israel's war with Hizbullah intensified over the weekend as Katyusha rockets rained down on northern Israel, prompting the IDF to deploy Patriot missile batteries outside Haifa and Defense Minister Amir Peretz to declare martial law throughout the North.
Meanwhile. a Katyusha rocket warning system is due to be activated in southern Haifa on Sunday, Home Front Commander Yitzhak Gershon said on Saturday night.
The system will sound the alarm a minute before the rockets hit the ground in order for residents to seek shelter.
Residents who had previously been asked not to leave their houses are requested to stay in the vicinity of shelters despite the introduction of the warning system.
On Saturday, two barrages of Katyushas landed for the first time in Tiberias, the deepest the rockets have landed in Israel since the fighting erupted last Wednesday.
Fearing additional rocket attacks on Haifa, home to 270,000 Israelis, as well as strategic installations such as oil refineries and Israel's largest port, the IDF decided to deploy three Patriot missile batteries outside the city, for the first time since the US invaded Iraq in 2003.
On Friday night, an Iranian radar-guided missile fired by Hizbullah struck a Navy missile ship off the Lebanese coast. One soldier was pronounced dead and, by Saturday night three soldiers were still missing and presumed dead.
Also Friday, a woman and her grandson were killed when a Katyusha rocket hit their home in the community of Meron, near Safed. The child was identified as Omer Pesahov, seven, from Nahariya; his grandmother was Yehudit Itzkovich, 58, fromMeron.
Dozens of others were treated for shrapnel wounds and shock by Magen David Adom, and the wounds of at least two people were listed as moderate to serious.
The IDF Home Front Command urged all residents of the North, estimated at almost a million people, to stay at home on Sunday and not go to work, camp, or spend time outdoors.
On Friday, the Lebanese Army fired anti-aircraft missiles for the first time at an IAF fighter jet, the IDF said. The IDF warned that it would strike back at the Lebanese Army. "We will hit anyone who attacks us," a high-ranking IAF officer told The Jerusalem Post late Saturday night. "No one is immune."
Martial law, defense officials explained, grants the IDF the authority to issue instructions to civilians and essentially close down offices, schools, camps and factories in cities considered under threat of attack. The IDF also has the authority to impose curfews on cities in the North.
Under such a situation, the instructions given by the Home Front Command, previously considered recommendations, become obligatory. It also allows for businesses that were closed following the extreme security situation to receive compensation for money lost.
The order signed by Peretz will be in effect for as long as 48 hours. To extend it beyond that period would require governmental approval. Both the cabinet and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee were scheduled to convene on Sunday to discuss the matter.
In response to the continued bombardment of northern Israel, IAF fighter jets blasted Beirut's southern suburbs and eastern Lebanon on Saturday, hitting buildings used by Hizbullah and Hamas.
Attack helicopters also hit central Beirut for the first time since fighting began last Wednesday following an attack on an IDF convoy in the North that killed eight soldiers while Hizbullah operatives abducted two others.