Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck just south of the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon as officials from the Hamas Islamic movement said they were close to signing a truce that would halt such attacks.

This was the second such strike today, after another rocket fired from Gaza struck an Israeli agricultural settlement this morning, according to an Israeli army spokesman speaking on customary condition of anonymity. There were no reported injuries in either incident, the first rocket attacks since the morning of Feb. 6, the army said.

Rocket firings, and Israeli reprisals, have occurred sporadically since both Israel and Hamas announced unilateral cease-fires that brought an end to the Israeli military operation in Gaza on Jan. 18.

Officials from Hamas, which controls Gaza, are in Cairo negotiating with Egyptian mediators on a longer-term cease-fire agreement that would halt all rocket strikes in return for Israel easing restrictions on the Palestinian enclave’s border crossings.

Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said in a statement sent to reporters that he expects a truce agreement to be announced within the coming days, “if we receive from Egypt convincing answers related to siege and crossings.”

‘Supreme Effort’

Reports in the Israeli press this morning quoted unidentified government officials saying that recent progress had been made to include the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza since June 2006, as part of a cease-fire agreement.

“A supreme effort is continuing day and night to advance the process that will bring Gilad home,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in comments broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 Saturday night.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert criticized the “stream of media reports” regarding a possible deal for Shalit’s release. “The recent reports are exaggerated and damaging; they are unnecessary,” Olmert said at the start of today’s weekly cabinet meeting, according to an e-mailed statement from his office.

Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, publicly emerged at the ceasefire talks in Cairo yesterday for the first time since he went into hiding after Israel began its military incursion on Dec. 27 to stop the rocket attacks.

Rafah Crossing

Zahar was part of a four-person delegation that crossed into Egypt yesterday through Gaza’s Rafah crossing. The Hamas delegation will hold further talks with senior Egyptian intelligence officials on a truce with Israel, and on reconciliation efforts with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction. Hamas and Fatah were part of a coalition Palestinian government until the Islamic movement seized full control of Gaza in June 2007.

Prior to that date, a team of border inspectors from the European Union worked jointly with Palestinians at the Rafah crossings. Hamas is asking for “clarifications over the mechanism of operating the crossings, and the role of the European inspectors there,” Barhoum said.

“We want to know if the role of the foreign inspectors would be security, technical or administrative,” Barhoum said, denying media reports that Hamas had accepted joint Turkish- French inspectors on the crossings.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is considered to be a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union. At least 1,375 Palestinians were killed in the recent conflict, according to the Palestinian emergency services department in Gaza. Thirteen Israelis died, according to the army, as more than 800 rockets were fired into Israel.

To contact the reporter on this story: Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem at cbendavid@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 8, 2009 07:29 EST