GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Hamas militants bombarded a major southern Israeli city with rocket fire Friday, unleashing their most powerful weapons yet in a week of tit-for-tat fighting that threatens to destroy a five month-old cease-fire.
Both Israel and Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers held out hope the calm would be restored, and Israeli leaders decided against any immediate major military action in retaliation. But the sides also vowed to strike back hard if violence persisted.
“If you want to leave the truce, we are ready. And if you want to continue it, then abide by it,” Hamas strongman Mahmoud Zahar said Friday.
The truce took effect in June, largely halting a cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel and Israeli reprisals.
The cease-fire has mostly held but began to deteriorate last week after an Israeli military raid on what the army said was a tunnel that militants planned to use for a cross-border raid.
Eleven militants have been killed, and Palestinians have fired about 140 rockets and mortars from Gaza at Israel.
Israel also has shut Gaza’s vital border crossings, blocking the entrance of food, humanitarian goods and fuel into the impoverished area.
The rocket barrage Friday was one of the heaviest yet. Nearly 20 rockets were fired into southern Israel, including four Grad-type Katyushas that landed in Ashkelon, about 17 miles north of Gaza. One woman in the southern Israeli town of Sderot was lightly injured by shrapnel, the army said.
It was the first time that rockets have reached Ashkelon in the current round of fighting.
The foreign-made Katyushas are thought to be smuggled into Gaza and have longer ranges than the crude homemade rockets usually fired by militants. With 120,000 people, Ashkelon is the biggest population center in rocket range, and Israel has responded harshly to past attacks on the coastal city.
