Hamas launches 'big missile attack' towards Tel Aviv for first time in months

Hamas armed wing al-Qassam Brigades said it launched a "big missile" attack on Tel Aviv on Sunday as the Israeli military sounded sirens in the central city warning of possible incoming rockets.

The armed wing of Palestinian militant group Hamas said Sunday it had fired a “large rocket barrage” at Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv, with the military reporting it had intercepted several. Targeting Tel Aviv "with a large rocket barrage in response to the Zionist (Israeli) massacres against civilians," the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades stated in a statement on Telegram.

The Israeli army reported that at least eight missiles were fired from Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah, where its soldiers are engaged in combat with Palestinian terrorists, into the country's core regions.

The military said that “a number of the projectiles were intercepted ” by Israeli air defences. An AFP correspondent in the Gaza Strip reported seeing rockets being fired from Rafah.

For the first time in months, rocket sirens were heard in Tel Aviv, and an AFP journalist claimed to have heard at least three explosions.

After Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, at than 1,170 people—mostly civilians—were killed, according to an AFP count based on Israeli government statistics. This strike marked the beginning of the Gaza War. Moreover, 252 captives were taken by militants; 121 of them are still in Gaza, including 37 who the army claims are dead.