A rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza killed an Israeli woman at her home today hours after Israeli troops shot dead a militant commander in a West Bank raid.
It was the first Israeli killed by rocket fire over the border from Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in February. The truce has been fraying for weeks, threatening disruptions to Israel's planned evacuation of settlers from occupied Gaza.
The rocket volley was an embarrassing setback for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who had arrived in Gaza shortly beforehand to press militants to stick to their pledge of "calm" critical to hopes of reviving Middle East peacemaking.
Militants said the rocket attack avenged the killing of a militant leader in an army raid into the West Bank city of Nablus, part of an Israeli security offensive after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five Israelis on Tuesday.
Israeli security sources said four rockets crashed into the collective farm of Netiv Haasara in southern Israel near Gaza's fenced border with at least one hitting a house, killing a woman in her yard.
Three mortar bombs fired from Gaza landed in a nearby collective farm, Nahal Oz, soon afterwards and three people suffered minor injuries, Israel's Zaka rescue service said.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a faction of the dominant Fatah movement, and the biggest militant faction Hamas both claimed responsibility for the late afternoon rocket volley.
Militants in Gaza fired thousands of rockets and mortar bombs into Jewish settlements and into Israel during a 4-1/2 year revolt. Rocket and mortar fire has markedly abated but not stopped entirely during what has been a shaky truce.
A serious resurgence of bloodshed could complicate Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza and a small part of the West Bank - its first evacuation of settlers from territory captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians want for a state.
Israeli rightists see any pullout as capitulation to a Palestinian uprising on land they believe the Bible bequeathed to Jews, and vow to step up a protest campaign.
Palestinians fear Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon intends to give them only tiny, impoverished Gaza while cementing Israel's hold on much bigger West Bank enclaves that house most of the 240,000 settlers and are considered by him to be strategic assets.