Tel Aviv was hit by rocket fire from Gaza, the first in nearly five years, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering a military response that Israeli media said was imminent.
The Israeli army said the iron dome intercepted at least two rockets over the Tel Aviv area, which was launched from the Gaza Strip.
Al-Jazeera correspondent Elias Karam said the iron dome intercepted a missile over the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, which includes cities such as Ramat Gan and Rish to Tzion, with more than 2 million residents, while another landed in an open area.
The correspondent added that it was the first time that rockets were fired from Gaza on Tel Aviv since the end of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014.
He said that Netanyahu went to the headquarters of the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv to hold consultations with the leaders of his army in preparation for a military strike in Gaza, and described the situation after the missile bombardment of the storm, pointing out that the Israeli response may be violent.
In this context, Israeli sources said that tonight will not pass quietly, and that the Israeli leadership is considering the size of the response and its strength and objectives.
In turn, Israeli media said that the Egyptian security delegation, which was present in Gaza in an effort to stabilize the truce between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli occupation left the Gaza Strip immediately after the bombing at the request of the Israeli government.
While the Israeli army said it did not know who fired the rockets, Israeli media reported that Hamas was not responsible for it, and that the Islamic Jihad was behind it.
But the spokesman of the Islamic Jihad Musab al-Barim denied the island of Israeli allegations about the responsibility of the movement to fire rockets.
Fearful of more rockets, the Tel Aviv municipality decided to open public shelters on the outskirts of the southern city. Elias Karam, a correspondent for the island, said the alert had also been lifted in all Israeli settlements adjacent to the Gaza Strip.
In Gaza, Al-Jazeera correspondent Hisham Zaqout said no Palestinian faction had claimed responsibility for firing rockets at Tel Aviv.
These developments come amidst Israeli threats to launch tougher strikes against Gaza in retaliation for the firing of balloons by Israeli youths on Israeli settlements within the framework of the return policy that has been going on for a year.