Palestinian youth shot by Israeli troops dies

A Palestinian youth shot by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip has died of his wounds, a Gaza medical official said Friday.

Adnan Abu Khater, aged 16, was shot Thursday near the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip, sources on both sides said.

Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for the emergency services in the Islamist Hamas-run territory, said in a statement that Khater died of his wounds after soldiers shot him in the leg east of Jabaliya.

Al-Qudra later reported that two men were shot and wounded, one seriously and one moderately, in separate incidents Friday afternoon.

The military said soldiers opened fire to break up a violent demonstration by Palestinians who were throwing rocks at soldiers and rolling burning tyres at the fence.

"During continuous attempts to disperse the riot soldiers fired toward the main instigators' lower extremities," a spokeswoman told AFP.

Earlier, a spokeswoman said of Thursday's incident that soldiers identified "a number of suspects" damaging the border fence.

She said the soldiers asked them to halt "numerous times but the suspects continued vandalising the fence" and they then opened fire and reported hitting a suspect.

Also on Thursday, Palestinians fired a projectile that hit near the border fence in Israel, a police spokeswoman said, causing no harm or damage.

In response, Israeli warplanes carried out a series of strikes against Gaza early Friday, the military said.

The army said that, "in response to rocket fire toward Israel", its "aircraft targeted a terror infrastructure site in the central Gaza Strip and three concealed rocket launchers in the northern Gaza Strip".

"Direct hits were confirmed."

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the air strikes.

Last Tuesday a sniper inside Gaza killed an Israeli repairing the border fence.

Israel retaliated against "terror sites" in Gaza with warplanes and tanks, killing a toddler and wounding at least six people.