GAZA (Reuters) - Israel carried out air strikes on the Gaza Strip Friday after a rocket fired from the Palestinian territory exploded in the city of Ashkelon, local witnesses said.
Palestinians said Israeli aircraft targeted a training camp used by the Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza. Medical workers said four people were lightly injured from debris.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said that Israel took the rocket fired into Ashkelon earlier Friday "very seriously."
The rocket blew out the windows of an apartment block and damaged parked cars in a residential area of the city on Israel's Mediterranean coast.
No one was injured in the attack, which broke more than a year of calm in the Israeli city closest to the Gaza Strip.
Ashkelon, with a population of 125,000, lies on the coast about 12 km (7 miles) north of Gaza's border. The mayor said it was the most serious attack on the city since Israel ended its Gaza offensive against Hamas in January 2009.
Rocket fire from Gaza has occurred only rarely since then.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Joseph Nasr)