The Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday that it detected a failed rocket launch from the area of Gaza City toward Israeli territory.

There were no reported casualties from the launch, a now-rare instance of attempted rocket fire into Israel. Prior to the war in Gaza, Hamas and other terror groups regularly fired rockets from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel.

The botched launch came as officials from Israel and other countries prepared on Thursday for the onset of the Gaza ceasefire’s second phase, which the US is planning to begin next week.

Phase two is meant to establish longer-term governance and security frameworks for the enclave. Meanwhile, instability persists in the Strip, which is divided between Israeli and Hamas control. On Wednesday, the UN agency serving Palestinians, UNRWA, announced that it was letting hundreds of employees go due to a severe funding shortfall.

Even as phase two is set to begin, the rocket launch marked one of the latest tests of the shaky ceasefire that took effect on October 10. According to the military, the projectile fell inside Gaza, near a hospital. Hebrew media reported that the rocket fell near IDF outposts in the area.

The IDF said it carried out a targeted strike on the launch site, adding that it viewed any attempt by terror groups in Gaza to carry out attacks against Israeli forces or civilians with “great severity.”

Further highlighting the truce’s fragility, Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency reported Israeli attacks in the Strip killed seven people on Thursday.

Four people, including three children, were killed when a drone struck a tent sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that an 11-year-old girl and an adult were killed in two separate attacks in Gaza.

Hamas-affiliated Palestinian health authorities earlier said two people, a woman and a boy, had been injured in two separate shooting........

© The Times of Israel