The Palestinian militant group Hamas has declared that it launched a barrage of rockets at Israel’s commercial center Tel Aviv for the first time in months. This action appears to be a display of strength as Israel’s operation in Gaza targets the group’s last stronghold in the southern city of Rafah.
Air raid sirens were heard in the Mediterranean coastal city and across central Israel on Sunday afternoon for the first time since January when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that a salvo of eight rockets was fired from the Rafah area. Over the past eight months of war, the group’s ability to fire rockets and drones towards Israeli territory has steadily diminished.
Despite most of the rockets being intercepted, there were reports of two women sustaining minor injuries while seeking shelter, and several flights from Ben Gurion airport were delayed or cancelled.
In a statement on its Telegram channel, Hamas’s military wing stated that the rockets were launched in response to “Zionist massacres against civilians”. On Sunday, at least five Palestinians were reported to have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Rafah, as stated by first responders.
The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, responded to the attack with a post on X that said: “Rafah! With full force!”
Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, commented: “Today’s barrage from Rafah is proof that the IDF must act wherever Hamas is.”
On the same day, the IDF refuted claims made by Hamas that an Israeli soldier had been abducted, following the unverified video footage published by the militant group on Saturday, which appeared to show Palestinian fighters dragging an unconscious soldier through a tunnel.
Despite a directive from the UN’s top court on Friday to halt the assault, which it said was exacerbating an already “disastrous” humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory, Israel has pressed ahead with an offensive on the southernmost part of the strip.
Rafah, on the Egyptian border, remains the only part of the Gaza Strip yet to face ground fighting, and over half of the territory’s 2.3 million population had sought shelter there before the offensive. Israel has reiterated the necessity of a ground operation in Rafah, where it believes Hamas’s leadership and four battalions of fighters are camped out using Israeli hostages as human shields, aiming to achieve “total victory” over the group.
