Air raid sirens have sounded in southern Israel after a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip, the first since Israel’s 11-day assault in May on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for rockets fired by Palestinian groups towards Israel.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Monday it identified one rocket launch that was intercepted by aerial defence batteries.

Amateur video footage appeared to show the rocket being intercepted over the southern town of Sderot.

The rocket fire could jeopardise three months of relative calm since Israel and Hamas, the group that governs the Gaza Strip, struck a ceasefire.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket fire. It came hours after Israeli troops clashed with Palestinians during a late-night arrest raid in the occupied West Bank, killing four Palestinians in one of the deadliest battles in the area in years.

The fighting erupted in Jenin, a city in the northern West Bank where tensions have been high since a man was killed in fighting with Israel earlier this month.

The West Bank has experienced an uptick in deadly violence in recent months, with more two dozen Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in recent weeks, including children and Palestinian protesters.

Israel’s war in May in the Gaza Strip, driven by friction in at a contest Jerusalem holy site and attempts by a settler group to evict Palestinians in east Jerusalem, and the recent establishment of a West Bank settlement outpost have contributed to the tensions.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and in the decades since has established dozens of settlements where nearly 500,000 settlers reside. The Palestinians seek the West Bank as part of their future state and view the settlements as a major obstacle to resolving the conflict.

TodayNG