‘Big missile’ attack launched on Tel Aviv, says Hamas armed wing

CAIRO/JERUSALEM – Hamas armed wing al-Qassam Brigades said it launched a “big missile” attack on Tel Aviv on May 26 as the Israeli military sounded sirens in the central city warning of possible incoming rockets.

In a statement on its Telegram channel on May 26, al-Qassam Brigades said the rockets were launched in response to what it called “Zionist massacres against civilians”.

Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV said the rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip, with an AFP correspondent reporting that rockets were seen being fired from Rafah.

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.

Rocket sirens had not been heard in Tel Aviv for the past four months.

The reason for the sirens was not immediately stated by the Israeli military.

Israeli emergency medical services said they had received no reports of casualties.

The attack signalled that the Islamist faction was still able to fire long-range rockets despite more than seven months of devastating Israeli military offensive from the air and the ground.

Earlier in the day, Israel’s armed forces bombarded Gaza, with air strikes and artillery shelling raining down overnight on the northern, central and southern areas.

Fighting has centred on Rafah, where Israel has vowed to destroy the last remaining Hamas battalions despite a chorus of international opposition to a ground invasion of the city.

Israel’s assault there from early May led Egypt to shut its side of the Rafah border crossing – but on May 26, aid trucks from Egypt again rolled into Gaza, this time via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing.

Israel’s military said on May 26 that the arrival of aid had been stepped up, both via a new US-built pier and through its own land crossings, Kerem Shalom and Erez West.

“This week, after the pier began operating for the first time, a total of 1,806 pallets of food were transferred in 127 trucks to logistics centres of international aid agencies in the Gaza Strip,” it said.

“In total, this week, 2,065 humanitarian aid trucks were inspected and transferred through the Kerem Shalom and Erez West crossings, which is almost twice the number in the previous week.”

US Central Command said on May 25 that four US Army vessels supporting the pier broke free of their moorings and had run aground in heavy seas, with Israel aiding the recovery effort.

Amid the fighting, officials have said that diplomatic efforts are expected to resume in the coming days, working towards a truce and hostage release deal.

US President Joe Biden said on May 25 his administration was engaged in “urgent diplomacy to secure an immediate ceasefire that brings hostages home”.

Mediator Egypt is also continuing “its efforts to reactivate ceasefire negotiations”, said Al-Qahera News, which has links with Egyptian intelligence.

Israeli media has said intelligence chief David Barnea had agreed to a new framework for talks on a ceasefire in a meeting with the US’ Central Intelligence Agency chief and Qatari mediators in Paris.

An Israeli official, requesting anonymity, said on May 25 that “there is an intention to renew these talks this week”.

But senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Qatar’s Al Jazeera network that so far “there is nothing practical on this issue. It is just talk coming from the Israeli side”.

As the bloodiest-ever Gaza war grinds on, Israel has faced heavy global pushback over the surging civilian death toll and the destruction of vast swathes of Gaza.

In the past week, it faced landmark moves from two international courts based in The Hague and from three European governments.

On May 20, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court said he would seek arrest warrants on war crimes charges against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister as well as against three top Hamas figures.

On May 22, Ireland, Norway and Spain said they would recognise Palestinian statehood by May 28, a move Israel angrily rejected as a “reward for terrorism”.

And on May 24, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to halt its Rafah offensive, demanded the release of hostages and urged the “unhindered provision” of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The ICJ ruling came in a case brought by South Africa alleging that Israel’s military operation amounts to “genocide”.

It ruled that Israel must “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

Israel has denied any military operations in the Rafah area that “could cause the destruction of the Palestinian civilian population, in whole or in part”.

The war in Gaza broke out after

Hamas’ Oct 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. REUTERS, AFP