Rocket fired from Gaza into Israel despite Hamas urging calm

A rocket was fired from the Palestinian enclave of  Gaza into Israel late on Wednesday, the Israeli army said, despite Hamas warning other factions to refrain from firing rockets.

"A rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory," the military said in a brief statement.

Local police said that a fragment of the rocket had fallen in a yard of a house in the southern Israeli city of Sderot.

There were no injuries, the police said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli police blocked crowds of Jewish ultra-nationalist protesters from approaching the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, in a bid to contain tensions.

Violence between Israel and Palestinians in and around the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound had flared last weekend, injuring around 170 people, following weeks of deadly violence in the Jewish state and the occupied West Bank.

Early on Tuesday, Israel carried out its first air strikes on the Gaza Strip in months in response to a rocket fired the previous night from the blockaded enclave, which is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas.

Last year, similar events sparked an 11-day war that levelled parts of Gaza.

Hamas appears to want to maintain calm in Gaza, despite the violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Hamas on Wednesday urged other Gaza armed factions to not fire rockets into Israel.

Palestinian factions gathered to speak on Wednesday about tensions with Israel, Haaretz reported, amid Israeli forces' repeated attacks on worshippers in occupied East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Hamas's chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, said other Palestinians should not take unilateral measures, such as launching projectiles.

Sinwar hosted high-level figures from other Gaza factions at his office and urged dialogue between different armed groups.

The information released to the public on the meeting has been limited, save for a commitment to remain prepared.