A Palestinian child was injured by Israeli tank shellfire in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah tonight, hospital and Palestinian security sources said.
Mohammad Swela (10) was hit in the chest by shrapnel when Israeli tanks shelled the Salah Eddin neighbourhood, the sources said.
An army spokesman said Israeli troops "had been targetted by heavy automatic gunfire and anti-tank grenades before firing back on the houses from which they were fired upon".
The border town of Rafah, between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, has been a flashpoint of the 10-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, and its inhabitants often complain of Israeli incursions into autonomous Palestinian land.
The tension has been further heightened recently by the fact that Israel has started digging a giant trench in the narrow strip of territory along the border, separating the Egyptians and the Palestinians.
Earlier today an Israeli teenager whose body was riddled with knife and gunshot wounds was turned over to the Israeli army in the West Bank. Israeli police said they believe Palestinians killed him.
Police spokesman Mr Rafi Yaffe said the youth, who Israeli radio stations said was 17, was killed in the West Bank city of Ramallah and his body handed over to the army by Palestinian security officials.
AFP