An Israeli air raid on Wednesday in the northern Gaza Strip targeting alleged militants killed one Palestinian and wounded three others, the Israeli army and a Palestinian official said. Israeli aircraft "targeted a terror cell plotting to detonate an explosive device against (military) forces stationed along the border of the northern Gaza Strip," the Israeli army said.
It declined to provide further details on the raid. A Gaza health ministry spokesman said one person was killed and three wounded on a beach in the area of Beit Lahiya, located near the Palestinian enclave's northern border with Israel. The spokesman, Ashraf al Qudra, identified the person killed as Musa Abu Zuaiter, 31, and said the casualties were the result of Israeli rocket fire. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party, said he was one of its members and vowed revenge. Gun-wielding masked militants from the group were seen attending his funeral in the Jabalia refugee camp. The air raid marks a departure from recent Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, which have usually followed rocket fire from Palestinian militants and have rarely led to casualties. There was no reported rocket fire from Gaza before Wednesday's strike, but there have been a number of recent incidents along the Gaza border, including explosions and gunfire targeting Israeli soldiers.