An Israeli border policeman prompted scenes of panic at a Tel Aviv airport this afternoon by committing suicide at a farewell ceremony for President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and his wife, Carla Bruni.

All protocol was dropped as the man's body fell from a high vantage point and a shot rang out. Mr Sarkozy and Ms Bruni were surrounded by security agents, who hastily bundled them aboard their plane.

Security guards for Ehud Olmert pulled out their handguns and hustled the Israeli Prime Minister and his entourage into waiting bullet-proof limousines.

When the incident ended, however, Mr Olmert and Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, boarded the Sarkozy plane to say a proper goodbye.

Israel Radio said that the officer who died was about 100m away from the Sarkozy plane as it waited on the runway at Ben Gurion, Israel's largest international airport. Two women soldiers who witnessed the incident fainted and were treated by medics.

The policeman apparently fell from a vantage point on a high building, where he had been guarding the event. Reports suggest the policeman shot himself in the head. “This was in no way an assassination attempt,” said Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman. “A border policeman ... committed suicide during the farewell ceremony.”

According to Mr Rosenfeld, the guard who shot himself was a paramilitary policeman and had been assigned to a security patrol at the airport.

The area police commander, Nissim Mor, said police were investigating the incident to determine if the officer had intended to commit suicide, or if he had accidentally discharged his weapon. “His mission was to secure an area to prevent people from reaching the ceremony,” he said.

The drama capped a day of tension as Palestinian militants fired at least two rockets into Israel from Gaza, in breach of the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas, Gaza's Islamist rulers.

The rockets struck an unoccupied home in the Israeli border town of Sderot, breaking the five-day old truce, said local rescue teams. Two people were lightly wounded.

"This is a blatant violation of the calm, and we will weigh options," an aide quoted Mr Olmert as saying after the rockets struck.

The Egyptian-brokered truce, which took effect last Thursday, calls on Hamas to prevent cross-border fire from the Gaza Strip, which it seized by force a year ago.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rocket attack, calling it a "first response" to Israel's killing overnight of a local commander of the militant group and another Palestinian, who was affiliated with Hamas, in the West Bank city of Nablus.

The truce deal, under which Israel agreed to halt its own operations in the Gaza Strip and to ease its economic blockade of the impoverished enclave, does not apply to the West Bank.

The Gaza Strip's ruling Hamas group says it remains committed to the truce, and promised to rein in the numerous militant groups who operate in Gaza.

Israeli officials would not say how they would react to the incident.

Mr Olmert has today been meeting mediators in Egypt to discuss promoting the truce.

The ability of Hamas to control other militant groups in Gaza is a weak point in the Egyptian-brokered truce. Islamic Jihad was one of the few groups to publicly announce that it would adhere to the terms of the ceasefire last week.

An Islamic Jihad member, speaking from Gaza, confirmed that one of the militants killed by Israel in the West Bank was Tareq Abu Ghali, 24, a senior member of the group. “We had to retaliate for the righteous blood spilled by the [Israelis],” he said.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad wanted the West Bank to be included in the ceasefire, but Israel reserved the right to act in that area, which is controlled by the moderate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

The violence came as representatives from more than 40 countries are meeting in Germany for a conference meant to boost support for the Palestinian Authority police force.

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