The rocket fell and exploded in an open area, triggering warning sirens in the Nahal Oz community to the east of Gaza City.

There were no reports of casualties or damage. The Israeli occupation army usually responds to such rocket fire with airstrikes in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, raising the possibility of further violence just ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The rocket attack comes a day before Israeli and Palestinian officials are set to meet in Egypt in a U.S.-backed effort to defuse violence that has soared especially in the occupied West Bank that included east Jerusalem for nearly a year.

The meeting in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh is a follow-up to last month’s meeting in Jordan for the same purpose. However, deadly Israeli raids in the West Bank continued since the Feb. 26 meeting in Aqaba. Twenty-three Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed in the ongoing bloodshed since then.

Since the start of this year, 85 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 14 people in the same period.

Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those areas since 2004, according to the leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that same time killed 30 people.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.