The head of the Shin Bet security agency said Monday he was personally responsible for the lack of an early warning for Hamas’s murderous October 7 attack on southern Israel, as Palestinian terrorists in Gaza launched fresh rocket barrages at Tel Aviv and the newly-formed cabinet for managing the war met with visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Rocket sirens were twice activated in Tel Aviv and surrounding cities during the evening, marking the third and fourth times the major metropolitan area in central Israel was targeted on Monday. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it had not received reports of impacts or casualties.

Alerts were also activated Monday evening in a number of southern towns, with the Sderot municipality reporting two rocket impacts. There were no immediate reports of injuries..

Sderot and the surrounding areas have been attacked repeatedly since being targeted in the surprise assault led by Hamas on October 7, in which over 1,300 people were killed and some 200 taken into Gaza as captives.

“Despite a series of actions we carried out, unfortunately, on [October 7] we were unable to generate a sufficient warning that would allow the attack to be thwarted,” Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar wrote in a missive to members of the agency.