Gaza rocket lands in Israeli city, no casualties

The rocket was the first of its kind to be fired at the city of 122,000 since informal ceasefires were declared separately by Israel and Hamas two weeks ago at the end of Israe'ls bruising three-week-long offensive in Gaza.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack from Palestinian armed factions in Gaza.

Ashkelon's mayor Benny Vaknin was quoted by Reuters as telling Israel Radio that the Grad rocket "struck the heart of a residential neighborhood".

"Luckily, it landed in an open area," he said. Ashkelon is 12 km (7 miles) from the coastal Gaza enclave, beyond the reach of the improvised rockets often fired by the Palestinians. Factory-produced Grads, which are smuggled into Gaza from neighbouring Egypt, have a longer reach.

"To the best of my knowledge when it's a Grad rocket, it's from Hamas," said Vaknin.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, whose ruling centrist Kadima party is trailing in opinion polls to right-wing opposition Likud in the run up to February 10 elections, on Tuesday called for a tough response.

"We have to react hard to this fire, otherwise the dissuasion balance created by our operation in Gaza will be affected," AFP quoted her as telling army radio.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whose centre-left Labor is shown in the polls to be slipping to fourth-largest party in parliament down from the second spot it currently holds, convened an emergency meeting of military and intelligence chiefs on Tuesday, army radio said.

Monday’s air raid in Gaza killed one Palestinian militant and wounded four other people in a strike on a vehicle carrying fighters in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

While Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Sunday to deal "a severe and disproportionate" response to new rocket fire, Barak was quoted as saying the army had no intention of embarking on a second war in Gaza.