Israel Raid Kills One, Wounds Two in Gaza

An Israeli air raid on the northern Gaza Strip killed one Palestinian and wounded two on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Hamas-run emergency services told Agence France Presse.

The strike hit a field used by Hamas militants just east of the town of Beit Hanun, Palestinian security sources said.

"We recovered one martyr and two other people with injuries after the air raid carried out by occupation aircraft in Beit Hanun," spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya told AFP, adding that one of the injured was in critical condition.

He identified the dead man as Mohammed Abu Awda, 23, and said medics were combing the area for any other casualties from the strike.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the target was "a terrorist squad that was attempting to place an explosive device by the security fence" in the second such incident this year.

She said an Israeli aircraft and the armored corps had fired at the squad, and the device that they were trying to plant had exploded.

In 2011, there were "approximately 30 such incidents," she added.

The skies over Gaza have remained largely calm over the past three weeks, with very little rocket fire on southern Israel and very few Israeli air strikes on the coastal territory.

Last month, eight Gazans were killed in a series of Israeli air strikes, six of them militants.

The last deadly incident was on December 30 when Israeli warplanes killed a militant near Gaza City, whom the military described as a "senior operative in the global jihad movement."