A five-year-old Palestinian boy was killed and his father and another person seriously injured tonight when Israeli forces opened fire on the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis.
The boy died after being hit in the head by a bullet and father and another man aged were hit in the chest and seriously injured.
Khan Yunis is just a few hundred metres (yards) from the heavily guarded Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Katif, and exchanges of fire are common. Houses along the western edge of the Palestinian town are riddled with bullet and shell holes.
However, the Israeli army categorically denied it was responsible for the boy's death.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian teenager wounded last month when an Israeli F-16 bombed an apartment block in Gaza City to kill the leader of the military wing of the Hamas militant group has died of her injuries.
Since the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian intifada, 2,445 people have died, including 1,801 Palestinians and 601 Israelis, the balance being made up of foreigners.
AFP