A rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel on Sunday evening, 20 hours after Israel and the Islamic Jihad had agreed to a ceasefire to end five days of fierce cross-border exchanges of fire.
The rocket landed in an open area and no one was hurt.
A Palestinian source announced quickly that the rocket was launched due to a technical error and that the Palestinians are still committed to the ceasefire.
In response, Israeli tanks fired at two Hamas positions close to the border – in contrast to the 5 days of fighting when only Islamic Jihad targets were hit.
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Israel appeared to accept that the rocket was fired in error and no major escalation was expected.
Sunday evening’s incident came after life in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel was slowly got back to normal after Israel the sides agreed to the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire.
Israel reopened the border crossings to allow Palestinian day labourers to cross into Israel and trucks to bring much- needed humanitarian assistance to Gaza. The truce came just a day before fuel supplies were due to run out in the densely-populated coastal enclave.
Schools and businesses in southern Israel reopened and tens of thousands of residents who had fled the south returned home.
Thirty-five Palestinians were killed since the start of the latest round of fighting on Tuesday, according to the Gaza health ministry, and almost 150 wounded. The fatalities included six senior Islamic Jihad commanders and gunmen who were firing rockets but also six children and 3 women.
Two people were killed inside Israel – an elderly woman from the centre of the country when her apartment received a direct hit and a Gaza worker who was at a building site in southern Israel.
According to the Israeli military, 1,478 rockets and mortars were fired from Gaza while it carried out 422 strikes against the Islamic Jihad. It said 95 per cent of the militant projectiles heading towards Israeli population centres were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system.
The day after the ceasefire went into effect on Saturday night both sides were quick to claim victory.
An umbrella group of Gaza militant organisations issued a statement declaring the Palestinians had “entered and exited the battle united and strong as ever,” even though Hamas had failed to join in the fighting. They warned Israel against carrying out additional targeted assassinations, saying that “our fingers are on the trigger.”
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told ministers at the start of Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting that Israel “changed the equation” in Gaza.
“The Israel Defence Forces and the Israel Security Agency Shin Bet took out the entire leadership of the Islamic Jihad and by doing so, fulfilled the goals of the mission in perfect form,” he said.
National security adviser Tzahi Hanegbi said “quiet would be met with quiet but Israel would do everything necessary to protect its citizens.”
Despite the Gaza truce, tensions remain high ahead of Thursday’s march of the flags through Jerusalem’s Old City- an annual event marking the anniversary of Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, viewed by the Palestinians as a provocation.
A call to ban the march was one of the demands by the Islamic Jihad in return for agreeing to a ceasefire, along with a commitment by Israel to refrain from targeted killings of militant leaders. The group eventually agreed to a truce without receiving any such assurances from Israel.
