The IDF has destroyed a Hamas watch tower in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a rocket which was fired towards southern Israel.

Warning sirens sounded in the Eshkol Regional Council communities bordering Gaza after the missile was launched on Sunday.

The army later reported that the rocket exploded in Gazan airspace with no injuries or damage reported.

In response, an IDF tank destroyed a Hamas watch tower in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Local sources in Gaza said that the site targeted by the Israeli shelling was located in the Abu Safiya area east of al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

An IDF statement said the rocket fire constituted a threat to Israeli citizens and an attack on the State of Israel’s sovereignty.

Hamas is held responsible "for all terrorist activity within the Gaza Strip," the statement said according to the Jerusalem Post

The incident follows a spell of relative quiet on the Israel-Gaza border. 

Much of the rocket fire that has taken place from Gaza this year is believed to have come from the Salafist-Jihadist movement rather than from Hamas operatives.

In recent weeks new attemptshave been made by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to reconcile their differences and put an end to their long-running feud.

Last week, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami al-Hamdallah chaired a meeting of the Palestinian cabinet in Gaza.

Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in a violent takeover in 2007 following Israel's withdrawal from the territory two years previously.