Gaza rocket hits southern Israel on election day: army

A women votes for Israel's parliamentary election at a special drive-in polling station for people who are in quarantine for coronavirus, in Ramat Gan, Israel. (AP)

JERUSALEM: Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a rocket at southern Israel on Tuesday, the army said, shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the region on election day.
“A short while ago, a projectile was fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory. As a result, an alert was activated in open areas only,” a statement from the Israeli army said, with a spokeswoman confirming a rocket hit an open field.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties caused by the rocket, the first fired from the Palestinian enclave since January, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The launch came a short while after Netanyahu visited the southern Israeli city of Beersheba as part of his efforts to whip up support among voters, as the country was holding the fourth election in less than two years.
Netanyahu, 71, is Israel’s longest-serving premier but his inability to unite a stable governing majority behind him has mired the country in political gridlock.
He hopes to be rewarded by voters for establishing ties with a series of Arab countries, and for a Covid vaccination campaign that has inoculated half of Israel’s roughly nine million people.