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The Israeli police and military reported that a single Grad rocket landed in a road outside the city of Ashkelon, causing damage but no injuries.

Ma'an, a Palestinian news agency, reported that the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military wing of the Fatah faction, had fired two rockets, but there was no official statement claiming responsibility. Several leaders of Hamas, the militant Islamic movement that rules Gaza, did not answer their telephones Tuesday morning. The Israeli prime minister's office declined to comment on the incident, but has generally held Hamas responsible for all attacks emanating from the coastal strip.

The rocket fire came after several days of demonstrations in Gaza and across the West Bank in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners and to protest the death in an Israeli jail Saturday of a 30-year-old who had been arrested for throwing stones at Jewish settlers. Many of the protests had been marked by clashes between the protesters and Israeli soldiers and settlers, with two Palestinian teenagers sustaining serious gunshot wounds Monday at Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem.

During a rally Sunday in Gaza, Hamas officials had expressed frustration with its rival Fatah faction in the West Bank for not doing more to support the prisoners. Attallah Abu Al-Sebah, Hamas's minister of prisoner affairs, urged Fatah "to set the hand of resistance free to deter the occupation and stop its crimes against the prisoners," and called for kidnapping Israeli soldiers "instead of pursuing playful negotiations that brought nothing to the Palestinian cause."

Gal Berger, a reporter for Israel Radio who focuses on the Palestinian territories, said the rockets were "designed to signal that Gaza is not cut off from what goes on" in the West Bank, describing the attack as "lip service, to show that they are not sitting on the sidelines."

Mr. Berger said the three months of quiet since the Nov. 21 cease-fire signed by Israel and Hamas that ended Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense was the "most impressive exhibition of the complete control Hamas has" over other militant groups like Al Aqsa and Islamic Jihad, which have frequently fired rockets from the strip in recent years.

"There has not been one rocket fired from Gaza since the operation, and the recalcitrant organizations were there all the time," he said. "Now it is proven that the organizations can't fire unless Hamas lets them."

Israeli officials have been holding special security consultations about how to handle the changing landscape and have sent messages to the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank urging calm. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority on Monday accused Israel of fomenting chaos.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman on Monday called on both sides to "exercise maximum restraint," a message he said was being conveyed directly to Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

"All parties should seriously consider the consequences of their actions, particularly at this very difficult moment," the spokesman, Patrick Ventrell, said at a news briefing. "We urge both Palestinians and Israelis not only to refrain from provocative actions that could destabilize conditions on the ground but to consider positive steps, just re-establish trust and de-escalate the current tensions."