Hamas militants have warned Israel for the first time, and in Hebrew, of an impending rocket attack, adopting psychological warfare with the Jewish state while trying to raise the morale of Gaza’s Palestinians harder hit by Israeli bombardment.

Around 160 Palestinians in the tiny overcrowded enclave, most of them civilians, have been killed in six days of conflict while Israel has reported no dead, prompting Gaza’s Islamist rulers to resort to innovative publicity tactics.

We will direct a military strike with rockets at the Tel Aviv area

Hamas’s domestic standing has taken a beating in peacetime as poverty and hunger have worsened in the Gaza Strip, worsened by an Israeli-Egyptian blockade and the demolition of border smuggling tunnels that were the lifeblood of its economy.

Now, by burnishing its accomplishments in its latest bloody showdown with Israel, Hamas has recalled its pre-2007 days as an militant faction under fire and not the political custodian of one of the most troubled, densely-populated tracts on earth.

On Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV at eight in the evening Saturday, the voice of Abu Ubeida – the perpetually masked and camouflaged spokesman of the group’s armed wing – broadcast a warning.

“(We) will direct a military strike with rockets at the Tel Aviv area and its surroundings with a J80 rocket after 9pm”

Audio of the threat in Hebrew followed, and Israeli TV stations immediately picked up the news. At seven minutes past nine, a series of thunderous roars in the coastal territory signalled the outgoing rockets. Warning sirens promptly sounded in the greater Tel Aviv region, the heavily populated heart of the Jewish state.

“Our rockets have struck Tel Aviv!” the loudspeaker of a Gaza mosque blared. The roars of men and boys arose from the windows of houses: “God is Great!”

No rocket actually hit Tel Aviv. They were either shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile interceptor or fell harmlessly on open ground. But that did not matter in Gaza.

Its inhabitants mostly rely for news on Hamas-controlled radio, TV and text messages, which hail rocket attacks on the “Zionist entity” and praise as martyrs the some 160 Palestinians killed since the six-day-old Israeli offensive began.

That no one in Israel has been killed in the attacks has been dismissed as a lie by Hamas-run media, and the Palestinian public appears to agree.