An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian militant who penetrated into Israel from Gaza were killed in a shootout on Friday, an Israeli army spokesman said on Friday.
The deadly encounter, the most serious incident at the Israeli-Gaza border in the past few months, took place at the Kissufim checkpoint in the early hours of Friday.
The spokesman said the militant intended to attack Israeli civilians.
Israel blamed the incident on the militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army retaliated with artillery fire and “preventive” airstrikes on Gaza’s border areas, a military source said.
There have been no reports of victims or injuries as a result of the strikes, but witnesses said they triggered fires at grain fields on the outskirts of the Khan Yunis city in southern Gaza.
