One dead in Israeli strike on Gaza

Israeli troops killed an unarmed Palestinian and wounded another during a clash with gunmen on the border of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip today, hospital officials and militant sources said.

They said gunmen from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) faction fired at an Israeli army bulldozer performing maintenance work on the boundary fence near the southern town of Khan Younis.

Soldiers shot back, hitting two civilians, one fatally, hospital officials said. The gunmen fled the scene. The PRC said the Israeli bulldozer and a small infantry unit were on the Gazan side of the border at the time.

An Israeli military spokesman had no immediate comment on the incident, which came during a relative lull in Gaza violence as Egypt tries to broker a ceasefire between Islamist Hamas and the Jewish state.

Israel has denied being in truce talks but offered to stop its attacks on Gaza if cross-border rocket salvoes and other militant activities in the territory ceased.

Hamas suspended its rocket fire after Israeli forces raided northern Gaza this month, killing more than 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians. There have, however, been sporadic launches by a smaller militant group, Islamic Jihad.