Sirens sound in Tel Aviv after Hamas fires rockets
Sirens have sounded in Tel Aviv for the first time in nearly four months after Hamas fired at least eight rockets from Rafah.
#israel #telaviv #rafah #gaza
#israel #telaviv #rafah #gaza
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00:00That is correct. It happened about four hours ago. Sirens sounding in Tel Aviv
00:06for the first time since January. In other places a bit further to the north,
00:11places which have not experienced sirens for about six months, sirens sounded
00:16again today. And these rockets came from Rafah, which is at the southern end of
00:21the Gaza Strip, and they were fired mostly to the northern outskirts of
00:26Tel Aviv. That's quite a distance. We're speaking of roughly a hundred and ten,
00:30maybe a hundred and twenty kilometers. So quite a long distance that these
00:35rockets actually traveled from the minute they were fired from Rafah
00:41and to the northern outskirts of Tel Aviv. Israeli officials were expecting
00:47such things as the operation in Rafah is advancing, saying that as the operation
00:53advances, Hamas will realize that pretty soon whatever is not being
00:59fired will eventually be detected and destroyed. Therefore, they have kept
01:04some long-range rockets and now they're using them, understanding that if
01:09they're not being fired soon, then they eventually might go to waste. They
01:13might be located and destroyed by the Israeli army. Therefore, the Israeli
01:19officials did prepare the population here in central Israel to such a
01:24possibility of Hamas firing long-range rockets, Hamas making sure to
01:30use them before they're useless. And Jonathan, we've been showing here in
01:33London pictures of more anti-government protests in Tel Aviv. What can you tell
01:39us about those? Are they intensifying or just becoming a regular event? Well, a
01:47regular event, yes, especially on Saturday evenings, but intensifying in
01:51recent days, especially over the last week since video of Israeli women
01:57soldiers being abducted back on October 7th and dead bodies being found in
02:02Gaza and brought back. The Israeli public saying to the government, if you
02:07don't act soon, if you don't head towards some kind of a hostage deal
02:12soon, then even those who are still alive in Gaza may come back only as dead
02:17bodies. A lot of pressure coming from wide parts of the Israeli society
02:23towards the Israeli government. And in the sense that at nine o'clock local
02:28time, a bit less than three hours from now, the Israeli war
02:33cabinet will convene to try and move forward once again some kind of a
02:38hostage deal. This after the head of the Israeli Secret Service, the Mossad,
02:42was in Paris over the weekend meeting with the head of the CIA and officials
02:46from Qatar trying to perhaps find a new formula to move these talks forward.
02:53Having said all that, there's not a lot of optimism in Israel for such a
02:57possibility of a hostage deal. Under the current situation, officials in
03:01Israel are saying that Hamas is still demanding one basic demand, and that is
03:08for the war to be stopped before any deal takes place. That, say Israeli
03:13officials, is something that Israel cannot do and will not do.