Rice sees hope in West Asia truce; Gaza rocket fired

DEAD SEA, Jordan, Dec 1 (Reuters) Militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Israel today and Israeli troops killed a Palestinian in the West Bank, hours after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed hope for a shaky 5-day truce.

Rice, on her seventh visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in under two years, came away with no tangible results after a series of meetings yesterday, but said she saw promise in the Gaza ceasefire struck last Sunday.

''This is the kind of thing that takes time,'' she told reporters after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jericho in the West Bank and Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem.

''You don't expect great leaps forward.'' Rice was expected to leave the region later today after holding more meetings at a Dead Sea resort in Jordan.

Early today, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank city of Hebron after he threw a petrol bomb at Israeli border police manning a roadblock, the army said.

His family said he had gone out early to pray and that he did not belong to any militant group.

In Gaza, militants fired a homemade rocket into southern Israel, raising the number launched since the ceasefire began to more than a dozen. There were no reports of any injuries or damage from today's attack.

However, it did underline the shakiness of the truce, which has put at least a temporary halt to more than five months of fighting between Israeli forces and militants in the Gaza Strip.

During that time, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed, nearly half of them civilians. Three Israeli troops have also been killed.

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