Israeli strike kills Palestinian militant in Gaza

GAZA, Sep 30 (Reuters) An Israeli air strike killed one militant and wounded three other Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah today, residents said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike was aimed at a vehicle used by militants it accused of planning an attack against Israel.

The dead gunman was from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement. Another militant and two bystanders were wounded.

Israel launched an offensive in Gaza in June to try to recover a captured soldier and stop cross-border rocket fire.

Over 220 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, around half of them civilians.

One of two makeshift rockets fired at the Jewish state today landed in the garden of a house in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, lightly wounding one person. The Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility for the rockets.

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