Zionist soldiers gun down Hamas fighter

GAZA CITY: Israel launched an airstrike in southern Gaza on Wednesday and killed a Hamas man. Palestinian medical sources said Tayseer Al-Ismary, 33, was killed “as a result of gunfire and shrapnel from a tank shell” in the incident east of the southern city of Khan Yunis. Hamas sources said he was a member of its military wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades. “The Israeli occupation is responsible for the tension east of Khan Yunis. They tried to cross the border, provoking a response from Hamas,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. The Israeli military said it acted after its troops came under fire from a sniper while they were on the Israeli side of the border fence. “As a result of the attack, an IDF combat soldier from the Bedouin Reconnaissance Battalion suffered a severe chest injury,” an army statement said. “In response to the firing at our forces, who were east of the fence in the southern Gaza Strip, we carried out immediate attacks against the relevant targets. There was an air strike and one by a tank,” it said. A month ago Israeli troops killed a Palestinian near the border fence in northern Gaza in the first deadly shooting since the truce. Wednesday’s shooting was the second such fatal incident.   AFP