Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom responded to attack saying it was "a serious exacerbation and Israel must respond accordingly." adding "It would be proper to respond because it cannot be left without a response, and the price needs to be a heavy one,"
Baroness Catherine Ashton, the EU's top diplomat, had just crossed into the Gaza Strip from Israel about an hour before the attack.
"A Color Red alert was sounded," one of the community's residents related to a YNet reporter. "We ran to find cover. There were about 20 seconds until we heard a very loud explosion."
Paramedics, who transported the injured man to a medical facility on Moshav Nativ Ha'asara in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council, were unable to save him.
An unknown Gaza group, Ansar al-Sunna, claimed responsibility for the attack, launched a day before the international Quartet of Middle East peace mediators was to meet in Moscow to discuss ways to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks.
The attack marks the third time rockets have been fired into Israeli territory in the last 24 hours.
