Hamas launches rocket attack towards Tel Aviv area

Hamas has launched a rocket attack at the Tel Aviv area in central Israel for the first time in nearly four months.

At least eight rockets were launched from the Rafah area in southern Gaza, the Israeli military said, adding that several were intercepted. No injuries were reported.

The Israeli army is carrying out a military operation in Rafah.

Rocket sirens sounded in other cities and towns, including Herzliya and Petah Tikva.

Israeli media published footage of missile fragments in the garden of a building in Herzliya. Other footage appeared to show damage to a bedroom in a house caused by shrapnel.

A different video showed a large crater apparently created by a rocket in an open area near the central town of Kfar Saba.

Israel’s ambulance service, Magen David Adom, said many people were being treated for acute anxiety.

The military wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, claimed credit for launching a “big” missile attack on Tel Aviv on its Telegram channel.

Tel Aviv, the economic centre of Israel, is the largest city in the country.

The rocket attacks came as Israel’s army intensified its assault on Rafah, despite a ruling by the International Court of Justice this week that it must immediately halt its offensive across Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called the ICJ order “outrageous, morally repugnant and disgusting”.

Israel began its offensive in Gaza after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel last October, killing about 1,200 people and taking 252 others as hostages.

At least 35,900 Palestinians have been killed in the war since then, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.