Hamas launched a rocket attack on the Tel Aviv area

Hamas said it launched a “massive” rocket attack on the Tel Aviv area in central Israel.

The Israeli military said at least eight rockets were launched from the Rafah area in southern Gaza, adding that some of the rockets were intercepted. No injuries were reported.

The attack – the first time in nearly four months that Hamas has attacked central Israel – came as Israel carried out an offensive campaign. military operations in Rafah, despite the ruling of the United Nations supreme court.

It also comes ahead of further ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, which are expected to continue next week.

With the attack, Hamas may be trying to flex its muscles ahead of the negotiations – or trying to derail them.

A level of normality has returned to Tel Aviv – Israel’s economic hub – since it was last attacked in January.

But air raid sirens sounding in cities including Tel Aviv, Herzliya and Petah Tikva were another reminder of the threat Hamas poses to people across Israel.

Footage released by Israeli media appeared to show rockets damaging buildings in Herzlia and the central town of Kfar Saba.

Hamas’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said the rocket attack was in response to a “massacre of civilians”.

Hamas did not confirm the attack was launched from Rafah, where there was reported fighting near the Kuwaiti Hospital.

Palestinian media said at least one person was killed and several others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a residential house in central Rafah.

Israel began its offensive on the southern city of Gaza about three weeks ago, vowing to destroy what it said were Hamas battalions present there.

The United Nations says more than 800,000 Palestinians have fled the southern city. About 1.5 million people have taken refuge from the fighting elsewhere in Gaza.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza began after gunmen from Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 252 others back to Gaza as hostages.

According to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, at least 35,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war since then.