Israeli troops kill Palestinian after deadly air strikes

Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man on Tuesday in the Gaza Strip as he came near to the border with Israel, Palestinian medics and witnesses said. The shooting came hours after Palestinian medics reported that a Palestinian was killed and seven wounded in at least four overnight Israeli air strikes across Gaza. The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted four areas in the Gaza Strip in response to the firing of a Grad rocket from the Palestinian territory into southern Israel. The man killed near the border fence with Israel was identified by his family as Mohammed al-Majdalali, aged 22. An earlier report from medics and witnesses said he was 17. Majdalali had approached the border east of the refugee camp of Maghazi in the central Gaza Strip, the sources said. Relatives said he did not belong to any armed group. An Israel army spokeswoman confirmed to AFP that "soldiers opened fire at a suspect who was approaching the border fence in this sector, and hit the suspect." She did not say if the suspect had any weapons or explosives on him. The Israeli army opens fire systematically on Palestinians who go near the border fence separating the Gaza Strip from the Jewish State to prevent attacks on patrols, infiltration attempts or bids by suspects to plant bombs. Earlier Tuesday Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesman for the Hamas-run emergency services in the Gaza Strip, said air strikes had killed one Palestinian and wounded seven in the coastal enclave. "We learned of the martyrdom of the youth Musa Shtawe, 29, who died of his injuries after a strike east of Gaza City," he said. "The outcome of the Israeli aggression during the past 24 hours is now one martyr and seven injured." The Israeli military did not specify which sites it had targeted, but Palestinian sources said they counted five air strikes across Gaza. Three of the raids hit targets east of Gaza City, including the Zeitun neighbourhood, they said. Further south, two more raids were carried out east of Khan Yunis and on a tunnel under the border with Egypt near Rafah, they said. "The raid in Rafah left three people injured, including a child," Abu Selmiya said. In a statement, Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said Shtawe was a member of the group. "He was martyred after a journey of jihad... and hard jihadi work," it said. The Israeli military said it carried out the strikes "in response to the firing of a rocket from the Gaza Strip at the city of Beersheva. The rocket that hit near Beersheva did not cause any damage or injuries, the military said. Israeli public radio said a second rocket had been fired at Beersheva, but it was not immediately clear where it landed. Since last month there has been an increase in the number of rockets fired from Gaza, which are usually followed by retaliatory air raids. The incidents have interrupted several months of calm following a flare-up in April, when an anti-tank missile hit an Israeli school bus, killing a teenager. Israel responded to that attack with a series of air strikes that killed at least 19 Palestinians in the deadliest violence since Israel's devastating 22-day assault on Gaza over New Year 2009.