A rocket being fired from the Gaza Strip. Photo: Twitter.

Sirens blared around the Israeli city of Ashkelon and the local Hof Ashkelon district late Thursday night after a rocket directed towards Israel was fired from the Gaza Strip.

According to Israel’s Channel 2 news, the projectile fell short and exploded within Gaza.

Immediately after the sirens rang, residents around Ashkelon said they heard an explosion, according to the report.

Asheklon resident Tal told Channel 2 that his family was “sitting in a restaurant when suddenly a waitress told us we had to leave. People got up in a panic and ran to the closest shelter.”

The missile was the fourth such attack directed at the Jewish state in the past week.

In response to the attack, Knesset Member Haim Yellin, of opposition party Yesh Atid, and a former head of Israel’s Eshkol Regional Council, said “the Israeli government is not taking care of this problem” and accused the country’s leadership of being too busy “maintaining its political survival.”

“Our lives are worthless,” Yellin added. “In a normal country, this ongoing military ping-pong — while the Israeli government restores Gaza — would not make sense.”

He said the alternative is a new military operation aimed at a complete demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigades — a new Gaza-based organization ideologically aligned with the Islamic State — took responsibility for the attack.