Fire in Gaza kills Palestinian farmer

GAZA, May 7: Israeli artillery fire today killed a 55-year-old Palestinian farmer in the Gaza Strip following a militant rocket attack on Israel, Palestinian medics and security forces said.

The Israeli army said soldiers had fired artillery shells in the northern Gaza Strip to target militants who launched a rocket towards Israel.

But an army spokeswoman said soldiers did not identify any hits from the munitions they fired.

She said the rocket fired by the militants landed in a Gaza Strip area after it fell short of its target in Israel.

Israel has stepped up strikes against militants, including artillery barrages against rocket launch sites used by militants, since the militant Islamist Hamas group took control of the Palestinian government in late March.

The Israeli shelling in farmland in northern Gaza near the town of Beit Lahiya followed similar violence yesterday in which one Palestinian was killed and two wounded by artillery fire in response to a separate Palestinian rocket strike.

An Israeli air strike on a training camp killed five Palestinian militants in Gaza on Friday in the first such strike ordered by Israel's new defence minister, Amir Peretz, of the centre-left Labour party.

REUTERS