A warning by Binyamin Netanyahu reached Hamas through Egypt saying that Israel would escalate reprisals if rocket fire continued.
Last week, several rockets were fired towards Ashkelon. Israel identified an Islamic Jihad terrorist as being responsible and seriously injured him yesterday in an airstrike on his motorcycle.
Hamas wants to stop Islamic Jihad from retaliating for the attack, and is meeting with PIJ leaders, deploying forces near the Gaza border and searching cars of suspected rocket launchers.
Pro-Fatah media like to publish stories of Hamas stopping attacks, because they believe that this undermines Hamas claims to be leading military attacks against Israel and instead shows them to be "collaborators."