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Hamas terrorists launched a rocket attack on Israel’s second-largest city today (SUN) with an indiscriminate barrage sparking air raid sirens for terrified civilians.
The terror group has not target Tel-Aviv for months since Israeli armed forces launched an offensive in Gaza in response to the atrocities carried out on October 7.
On Saturday thousands of Israelis marched in the city calling for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more to secure the release of hostages still held by Hamas in the Palestinian enclave.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in Tel-Aviv today after what appeared to be the first long-range rocket attack from Gaza into Israeli territory since January.
Hamas’ military wing claimed responsibility for the attack. Palestinian militants have sporadically fired rockets and mortar rounds at communities along the Gaza border, and the military arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group later said it fired rockets at nearby communities.
The Israeli military said eight projectiles crossed into Israel after being launched from the area of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israeli forces recently launched an incursion.
It said “a number” of the projectiles were intercepted, and military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the launcher in Rafah was destroyed.
Earlier on Sunday aid trucks entered Gaza from southern Israel under a new agreement to bypass the Rafah crossing with Egypt after Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of it earlier this month.
But it was not immediately clear if humanitarian groups could access the aid because of fighting.
Egypt refuses to reopen its side of the Rafah crossing until control of the Gaza side is handed back to Palestinians. It agreed to temporarily divert traffic through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, Gaza’s main cargo terminal, after a call between US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
But the Kerem Shalom crossing has been largely inaccessible because of Israel’s offensive in Rafah. Israel says it has allowed hundreds of trucks to enter, but United Nations agencies say it is usually too dangerous to retrieve the aid.
The war between Israel and Hamas has killed nearly 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its count. The Health Ministry said the bodies of 81 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours.
Around 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, severe hunger is widespread and U.N. officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.
Hamas triggered the war with its October 7 terror attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seized some 250 hostages.
Hamas still holds some 100 hostages and the remains of around 30 others after most of the rest were released during a cease-fire last year.
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