Israeli air strike kills Gaza teen- medics

GAZA, Sep 27 (Reuters) An Israeli warplane bombed and destroyed a home in the Gaza Strip today, killing a teenage girl in a neighbouring building and wounding 10 other people, Palestinian medics said.

The Israeli army confirmed it had fired at a house camouflaging a weapons-smuggling tunnel in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, and that its occupants had been warned beforehand to leave.

Dr Ali Mousa, the director of Rafah's hospital, told Reuters a girl, 14, died when a block from the house that Israel bombed twice ricocheted into a neighbouring building causing it to collapse.

He said 10 other people were wounded by the blast, most of them women and children who suffered broken bones, bruises and shrapnel wounds.

The Israeli strike came hours after a rocket fired from Gaza wounded an off-duty Israeli soldier in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

Israel has stepped up military operations in Gaza, a coastal strip it had withdrawn from last year, after Palestinian militants captured a soldier in a June 25 cross-border raid.

REUTERS SRS RAI0425