Two Qassam rockets were fired from northern Gaza towards Israel on Thursday afternoon, one of them landed near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council.

No injuries were reported and no damage was caused.

Shortly after 3:40 pm the Color Red rocket alert sirens blared throughout Sderot and neighboring communities in the western Negev, sending residents running to bomb shelters.

Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, claimed responsibility for the fire. The organization said this was in response to the killing to Talal Abad near Jenin on Wednesday.

Earlier on Thursday a Palestinian man was killed by IDF fire near the Kissufim crossing. The army said that at around 4:00 am soldiers manning an observation post spotted a suspicious figure advancing towards the security fence near the Kissufim crossing on the Gaza border. Infantry troops who were alerted to the scene called for the man to halt and fired warning shots in the air.

However the man continued to advance towards the Israeli side of the border, at which point the soldiers fired in the air once more and then aimed at the suspect's lower body; when he did not stop the soldiers resumed their fire and killed him.

The army said no weapons were found on his person. An initial investigation into the incident, the first of its kind since the ceasefire between Israel and armed Palestinian groups in Gaza went into effect in June, determined that the soldiers operated according to army protocol.