On the evening of March 14, sirens went off throughout the Tel Aviv metro area, shattering the calm indifference of Israel’s secular hub. At first, residents were convinced it was a mistake. Sirens? In Tel Aviv? Most people out on the street did not follow standing instructions to run for cover into a nearby building, a shelter or concrete-enforced safe room that all newer Israeli homes are supposed to have. Tel Avivians have not heard such sirens since the war with the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014, unlike residents of the southern town of Sderot and neighboring kibbutzim on the Gaza border where alarms go off periodically alerting them to incoming rockets.

Several loud explosions reverberated throughout the area soon after the clamoring alarm, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis suddenly realized this was no mistake. It took the chief military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Ronen Manelis, an embarrassingly long time to announce that rockets had indeed been fired at Tel Aviv, to concede they had taken the army by surprise and to say that the authorities were “trying to understand” who was behind the attack. They were busy all night doing just that.

A recent military assessment expressed concern about an escalation with Gaza, especially ahead of Israel’s April 9 elections, but no one believed Hamas would dare fire rockets or allow some local militia to do so. Such attacks are a “doomsday weapon” Hamas reserves for critical times of an all-out war with Israel. Thursday was not such a critical moment; it was more like a mishap-default reaction. Qatar’s latest cash installment had reached the Gaza Strip March 11 after a lengthy delay. A senior Egyptian delegation was in Gaza on an ongoing mission to mediate a long-term truce between Hamas and Israel. And then two long-range M-75 rockets rose into the sky and headed north toward Israel’s biggest metropolis.

The rockets did not explode near any civilians and did not result in casualties. The explosions, however, were heard loud and clear shocking Israelis less than a month before they go to the ballot box. Most shocked was Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A rocket attack on Tel Aviv was the last thing he needed as he is waging a bitter campaign to restore to his Likud Party the votes it lost to smaller right-wing parties in order to ensure its election victory. Gaza is a major sore on Netanyahu’s soft underbelly, with right-wing voters viewing his government’s policy as capitulation to Hamas. Rockets directed at Tel Aviv, Netanyahu knows, forces him to retaliate forcefully, which could in turn result in a forceful Hamas reaction. This would invariably result in a powerful Islamic Jihad attack, because the group is also vying for the hearts and minds of Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians, and this in turn would require Israel to raise the bar further. Netanyahu would be faced with an escalation, which could veer out of control on the eve of the elections. In other words, a potential catastrophe. Netanyahu has built up an image as the ultimate “Mr. Security” in recent years, and the rockets could shatter it at a critical point in time.