Medium-range rocket from Gaza hits Israeli city

JERUSALEM A medium-range rocket from Gaza landed in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday as delegates from the territory's militant Islamic Hamas rulers met in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials striving to mediate a long-term truce with Israel.

The Grad rocket was the first of its kind to be fired at the city of 122,000 since informal cease-fires were declared separately by Israel and Hamas two weeks ago at the end of Israel's bruising three-week-long offensive in Gaza. The rocket landed in an open space in the middle of the city and no one was injured, police said. The Grad is distinctive from the home-made projectiles more commonly used by Hamas and smaller militant groups, as it is manufactured abroad, has greater reach and carries a more powerful payload.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak pledged that if Hamas held its fire Israel would do likewise, while violence would be met by violence.

"If there is quiet then there will be quiet," he told reporters during a tour of northern Israel's border with Lebanon. "If it is necessary to deal another, even stronger, blow then at the right time and in the right way an additional and stronger blow will be dealt."

Residents of the southern Gaza town of Rafah said they received telephone messages from the Israeli military later in the day warning them to leave their homes ahead of an impending airstrike. The town, on the frontier with Egypt, is a center for smuggling goods and weapons into the strip through tunnels under the border.

The recorded messages, in Arabic, said people who work in tunnels, live near them or are "giving logistical help to terrorists" should evacuate the area immediately, residents said.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive on Dec. 27 to halt near-daily rocket fire from Gaza at Israel targets. Sporadic rocket and mortar fire from Gaza has continued, however, prompting tough warnings of reprisal from Israeli leaders.

More than a dozen rockets and mortar shells slammed into Israel on Sunday. The following day Israel fired a missile at a car in the town of Rafah, killing a Palestinian militant, and bombed the nearby Gaza-Egypt border, seeking to destroy tunnels that Hamas uses to smuggle in weapons and supplies.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni pledged to keep hitting Hamas as long rockets continue to be fired at Israel, and she ruled out negotiations with Hamas.

"Terror must be fought with force and lots of force. Therefore we will strike Hamas," she said at a security conference Monday. "If by ending the operation we have yet to achieve deterrence, we will continue until they get the message."