Written by Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Emily Rose
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said it fired rockets at Tel Aviv on Sunday, prompting sirens to sound in the Israeli city for the first time in four months, as the Palestinian movement seeks to demonstrate military strength despite… The Israeli attack on Gaza.
The Israeli army said that eight shells were detected coming from the Rafah area, the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, where Israel continued its operations despite a UN Supreme Court ruling that ordered it to stop attacking the city.
The Israeli army said that a number of missiles were intercepted. Israeli emergency services said they had not received any reports of injuries.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, affiliated with the Hamas movement, said in a statement on its Telegram channel that the rockets were fired in response to “Zionist massacres against civilians.”
Al-Aqsa TV, affiliated with Hamas, said that the rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip.
Rafah is located about 100 kilometers south of Tel Aviv.
Israel says it wants to eliminate Hamas fighters holed up in Rafah and rescue hostages it says are being held in the area, but its attack has exacerbated the plight of civilians and sparked international outrage.
Israeli raids on Sunday killed at least five Palestinians in Rafah, according to local medical services.
Israeli tanks combed the outskirts of the city near the main southern crossing point to Egypt, but they had not yet entered the city by force.
Following the rocket launch, hardline Israeli Public Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – not a member of Israel's war cabinet – urged the army to strike Rafah more forcefully.
“Rafah in full force,” he posted on the X website.
The Gaza Ministry of Health says that nearly 36,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attack. Israel launched the operation after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage, according to Israeli statistics.
Fighting also continued on Sunday in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, a densely built-up area that saw weeks of intense fighting earlier in the war. During one raid, the army said it found a weapons storage site containing dozens of missile and weapons parts found in a school.
It denied Hamas's statements that Palestinian fighters had kidnapped an Israeli soldier.
Truce talks
Efforts to agree to stop the fighting and return more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza have faltered for weeks, but there were some signs of movement after meetings between Israeli and American intelligence officials and the prime minister of Qatar.
An official familiar with the matter said that a decision was made to resume talks this week based on new proposals from Egyptian and Qatari mediators and with active American participation.
But a Hamas official downplayed the report, telling Reuters: “It is not true.”
Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official in exile, said the movement had not received anything from the mediators about new dates for the resumption of talks as reported by Israeli media.
Al-Rishq renewed Hamas’ demands, which include: “Stopping the aggression completely and permanently in the entire Gaza Strip, not just Rafah.”
As Israel seeks to return the hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the war will not end until Hamas is eliminated.
Aid trucks enter Gaza
Israel is facing calls to bring more aid into Gaza after more than seven months of war that caused widespread destruction and famine in the Strip.
Israel prepared on Sunday to allow about 200 aid trucks into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing at the southeastern edge of the Palestinian enclave, bypassing the main Rafah crossing that has been closed for weeks.
This comes after an agreement between US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Friday to temporarily send aid through the crossing.
Egyptian Red Crescent official Khaled Zayed told Reuters that 200 aid trucks, including four fuel trucks, are expected to enter on Sunday through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
Egypt's state-owned Cairo News Channel shared a video clip on the social media platform
The Rafah crossing has been closed for about three weeks, since Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the crossing while intensifying its attack on the region on May 6.
Egypt is increasingly concerned about the possibility of large numbers of Palestinians entering its territory from Gaza, and has refused to open its side of the Rafah crossing.
Israel said it was not restricting aid flows and opened new crossing points in the north and was cooperating with the United States, which set up a temporary floating dock to deliver aid.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal Al-Mughrabi, additional reporting by Yousry Mohamed, editing by Tom Perry, Frances Kerry and Christina Fincher)
