Rocket explodes in Israel

A rocket fired from Gaza exploded in Israel yesterday, the first such attack since a November truce, and a militant group said it launched the strike to retaliate for the death of a Palestinian in an Israeli jail.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank-based Fatah movement, called the rocket a “first response” to inmate Arafat Jaradat’s death in disputed circumstances on Saturday.

“We must resist our enemy by all available means,” the group said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. “We stress our commitment to armed struggle against the Zionist enemy.”

Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, said it was investigating the attack, which caused no casualties and followed a surge in West Bank protests since Jaradat’s death and intermittent hunger strikes by four other prisoners.

The rocket hit a road near the southern city of Ashkelon, police said.

Israel responded by closing the Kerem Shalom border crossing through which produce and other goods are moved into the Gaza Strip, but it took no immediate military action.

The rocket was the first to hit Israel since a November 21 truce brokered by Egypt that ended eight days of cross-border air strikes and missile attacks in which 175 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed.

In addition to the fire from Gaza, a surge of unrest in the occupied West Bank has raised fears in Israel of a new Palestinian Intifada, or uprising.