The Qassam Brigades announced on Friday on its website that it has launched series of rockets targeting the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
The announcement was followed by an extensive bombing carried out by the Palestinian factions against other Israeli cities.
The brigades are calling their strikes the “Operation Stones of Sijjil.”
The name “sijjil” comes from a chapter in the Quran, when stones of sijjil (baked clay) were used to fight people who wanted to attack Ka'ba by elephants.
According to a second Israeli channel, the rockets landed in an open area in Tel Aviv on Friday, causing no injuries. AFP reported that the rocket fired from Gaza on Friday crashed into the sea off Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv-Jaffa lies some 60 km north of the Gaza Strip. The Iranian-developed Fajr 5 rockets have a range of up to 75 km.
Operations carried out Friday afternoon targeted the cities of Tel Aviv, Asqalan, Bier al-Sab, Asdoud and several Israeli settlements built in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip.
Alarm sirens were heard in Tel Aviv at 1:30 pm Friday. A few minutes later a blast was heard in the city, according to the website 1948 Arab.
A Hamas official in Beirut considered the bombing a strategic achievement for the Palestinian resistance.
He added that the rockets landed in Tel Aviv, which means other operations could target the same city in case aggression on Gaza continued.
Israel had not officially announced at the beginning the attack, but the Israeli media outlet admitted it, saying that it was the first time rockets had been fired at the city since the 1991 Gulf War when it was hit by Iraqi Scud missiles.
"The criminal enemy who started the battle playing dirty has got to anticipate upcoming strikes and dark days planned by Qassam," Qassam Brigades said in a statement Thursday.
The brigade website detailed 20 operations for launching rockets into Tel Aviv on Wednesday and Thursday.
The War.pres account on YouTube uploaded a video that allegedly displays one of the operations conducted at dawn.
