Israel's air force killed a Palestinian rocket crewman and wounded one of his comrades after they fired a salvo across the Gaza Strip's frontier on Tuesday, both sides said.

The air strike near the Erez border crossing came during a lull in fighting following the completion of a five-day Israeli assault on the ruling Islamist Hamas militants in northern Gaza which killed more than 100 Palestinians, many of them civilians.

Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group sometimes allied with Hamas, said the casualties from Tuesday's missile attack were members of one of its rocket crews. They had been launching rockets into the Jewish state, Islamic Jihad said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the air force struck a rocket crew. Two rockets hit the Israeli border town of Sderot, damaging a house but causing no casualties, Army Radio reported.

Hamas, which claimed Israel's pullback on Monday as a victory, said its armed wing was temporarily holding fire. Israel said its assault had stemmed the salvoes, but Hamas denied being deterred from any resumption of fighting.