Hamas shells Tel Aviv amid Israeli onslaught on Gaza

By Abdel-Salam Fayez

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – Palestinian group Hamas said Monday it fired a volley of rockets on Tel Aviv in central Israel, for the first time in over a month.

The group’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said the rocket fire “was in response to Israeli massacres against civilians.”

Israeli Channel 12 reported that at least 12 rockets were launched towards Tel Aviv, with rocket warning sirens activated in central Israel for the first time in over a month.

According to the broadcaster, rockets were intercepted in the sky by the Iron Dome missile defense system.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

Despite a provisional ruling Friday by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that ordered Tel Aviv to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, Israel continued its onslaught against the coastal enclave where at least 26,637 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 65,387 injured since Oct. 7, according to Palestinian health authorities.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced by the Israeli onslaught, while all of them are food insecure, according to the UN. Hundreds of thousands of people are living without shelter, and ⁠less than half of aid trucks are entering the territory than before the start of the conflict.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar