Hamas says fired ‘large rocket barrage’ at Tel Aviv

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.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a post on Telegram that they had targeted Tel Aviv “with a large rocket barrage in response to the Zionist (Israeli) massacres against civilians”.

Israel’s army said at least eight rockets were fired towards central areas of the country from Gaza’s far-southern city of Rafah, where its forces have been battling Palestinian militants.

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.

Rocket sirens blared in Tel Aviv for the first time in months, with an AFP correspondent reported hearing at least three blasts.

The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,984 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.