Palestinian killed in Israeli raid on Gaza
GAZA CITY (AFP) — A Palestinian militant was killed and nearly 20 people were wounded on Wednesday during an Israeli incursion into the southern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian medics and witnesses.
Israeli armoured vehicles and bulldozers backed by aerial drones entered the region east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, they said.
The fighter from the Islamic Jihad movement was killed and five others were wounded in an air strike. An earlier air strike targeted a house where armed men were meeting, and two Palestinians were hit by Israeli gunfire.
The Islamist Hamas movement, which seized control of Gaza nearly a year ago, confirmed that 10 of the wounded were fighters from its armed wing, and that they had fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the Israeli forces.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops "had opened fire near Khan Yunis against armed Palestinians... The soldiers said that some of them had been hit." She later confirmed "an air strike on armed gunmen."
Since Israel and the Palestinians relaunched formal peace talks in November at least 452 people have been killed, most of them Gaza militants, according to an AFP count.
