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One dead, two wounded in Israel strike on Gaza: medics

27 December 2011 22:13 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. An Israeli air strike killed at least one Palestinian and wounded two in the northern Gaza Strip late on Tuesday, APA reports quoting AFP.

They named the dead man as Abdallah al-Telbani, 22, and said he was riding in a motorised rickshaw in Jabaliya refugee camp when the attack took place. It was not immediately clear if the other casualties were riding with him.

Israeli public radio said the dead man was a member of Islamic Jihad, but the movementâ€™s armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, said none of its members were hit.

The Israeli military said the target was "a squad affiliated with recent terror activity."

"The Israel Defence Forces will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians and ... soldiers, and will operate against anyone who uses terror against the State of Israel," it said, without elaborating.

The strike took place on the third anniversary of the start of Operation Cast Lead, Israelâ€™s devastating 22-day offensive against the Hamas-ruled coastal strip, and came as the militant group and its Fatah rivals sought to implement a reconciliation deal.

Since 2007, the Palestinian territories have been politically divided into two separate territories, with the Fatah of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas largely ruling the West Bank and Hamas governing Gaza.

In May, following years of bitter rivalry, the two factions signed a unity agreement which has yet to be implemented.

In October, Gaza militants announced a truce with Israel, but the ceasefire has been been a shaky one, and sporadic rocket fire has drawn Israeli retaliation.

The last Israeli strike on Gaza was on December 11, when a Palestinian father and his daughter were wounded in a raid that apparently targeted a neighbouring building in Gaza City.

Two days earlier, a man and his 12-year-old son were killed and 10 civilians wounded when an Israeli air strike hit a family home in Gaza City that was located next to a Hamas militant training ground.

On December 7, Ismail al-Areer, 22, a member of Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, was killed in a strike that wounded five other members of the movement.

The operations followed days of rising tensions, with Gaza militants lobbing a barrage of rockets into southern Israel and the Israeli military launching a series of air raids.