DEIR AL-BALAH — The terrorist group Hamas on Sunday he fired a volley of rockets from Gaza that sounded air raid sirens until Tel Avivin an escalation of the conflict that international diplomacy is trying to stop with new efforts to resume negotiating a truce.
Alarm sirens rang out in central Israel for the first time in months.
Shortly after, the Ezedin al Qasam terrorist brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, stated on Telegram that they had attacked Tel Aviv, justifying the attack as a “response to the Zionist massacres against civilians.”
The Israeli army said at least eight rockets were fired from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where its forces are fighting Islamist terrorists. “Some rockets were intercepted,” he said.
Hours earlier, Israeli shelling and artillery fire had hit the north and center of the Palestinian territory, as well as Rafah, a city in the far south where Israel says Hamas is holding Israeli hostages.
“Emergency diplomacy”
After almost eight months of war, international and internal pressure continues to increase for Israel to reach an agreement with Hamas that includes the release of the hostages still in the hands of the terrorists who have ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007.
A senior official said the Israeli war cabinet plans to meet Sunday night to discuss efforts to free the hostages.
Another source assured on Saturday that the Israeli government has the “intention” to relaunch the negotiations “this week.”
Egypt also stated that it was continuing “its efforts to revive indirect negotiations” between Israel and Hamas, Al Qahera News added.
Indirect negotiations brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States stalled in early May, shortly after the start of Israel’s ground operations in Rafah.
Israeli media indicated that the head of Mossad – the intelligence service -, David Barnea, agreed during meetings in Paris with the director of the CIA, William Burns, and the Qatari prime minister, Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al Thani, a new framework for conversations.
US President Joe Biden said he was “engaged in emergency diplomacy” to try to achieve a ceasefire and the release of the hostages.
Qatari officials are scheduled to meet with a Hamas delegation in the coming days, according to the American news website Axios.
– “Intensive” bombing –
The war broke out on October 7, when Hamas terrorist commandos killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel.
The militants also kidnapped 252 people. Israel claims that 121 remain kidnapped in Gaza, of which 37 have died.
In response, Israel promised to “annihilate” Hamas and launched an offensive against the Gaza Strip, in which 35,984 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died so far, according to the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian territory, governed by the Islamist movement. . No independent body has confirmed the figures disclosed by the terrorists.
In the south, the Israeli army began ground operations on May 7 in some sectors of Rafah, where it claims to be the last strongholds of Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Some 800,000 people have fled the city since that day, according to the UN, which warns of the catastrophic humanitarian situation throughout the Gaza Strip, with the risk of famine and hospitals out of service due to the Israeli siege.
Source: With information from AFP
