The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, initiated the New Year with a declaration of barraging Tel Aviv, its suburbs, and the Israeli envelope surrounding the Gaza Strip with a flurry of rockets.
The Al-Qassam Brigades stated that they targeted Tel Aviv and its suburbs with a volley of M-90 rockets in response to "the Zionist massacres against Palestinian civilians," and they shared a video clip of the rocket launch operation.
On its part, the Israeli newspaper "Yedioth Ahronoth" reported that Israel welcomed the New Year with a barrage of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. Israeli media outlets also mentioned that about 20 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward central Israel.
Al-Qassam publishes footage of rocket salvos towards Tel Aviv in the first minute of the New Year #Gaza_War #News
According to the Israel Defense Forces radio, air raid sirens sounded in the cities of Tel Aviv, Rishon LeZion, Lod, Ramla, Bnei Brak, and the Modi'in settlement in the central West Bank. Sirens also went off in the city of Sderot and other areas in the Gaza envelope.
Commenting on the Qassam rocket salvos, Major General Waasif Erekat, a military affairs expert, told Al-Jazeera that striking Tel Aviv at this time is a message from the Al-Qassam Brigades to the occupation.
He further explained that the resistance, "which excelled in choosing the timing of the Battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, has renewed the defeat of the occupation from 2023 to 2024, meaning that they have transformed the defeat into a qualitative leap forward, telling the Israeli leadership: As we defeated you in 2023, here we are opening the year with another defeat."
