Late Thursday night, the Home Front Command instructed residents of Acre, Haifa, Tirat Hacarmel, and Nesher to sleep in fortified rooms. Anyone without access to a fortified room was advised to sleep in an inside room, with the windows closed, Army Radio reported. Residents along the northern border were instructed to spend the night in bomb shelters. The revised instructions came after two rockets launched from Lebanon landed in Haifa in the neighborhood of Stella Maris, the first time missiles have penetrated so far into Israel. Sappers came to the scene to neutralize the rocket that landed in the middle of a road. One person suffered from shock. The launch represented the farthest a rocket had ever reached into Israel. Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned earlier that his organization would strike Haifa if Israel attacked Beirut. There were no reports as yet that Israel had struck Beirut. Before the attack on Haifa, CNN reported that the US Navy ordered one of their ships that was docked at the Haifa Bay to be moved to a safer location.
Shortly before the attack, a rocket hit the old city in Safed, followed by another strike about an hour later. One of thirteen wounded people, who was initially listed in critical condition, later died of his wounds. Two others were seriously wounded, one moderately, and the rest were lightly wounded. A boy was reported missing, and was feared to be trapped in a building that was struck. Following the strike, power supply was cut in parts of the city.