23/06/2012 - Israel - Palestine

Israel military denies killing boy in Gaza air strikes

The Israeli military has denied it was responsible for the death of a six-year-old Palestinian boy after launching air strikes on Gaza on Saturday.

AFP - A six-year-old boy was killed and two other Palestinians wounded in Gaza on Saturday, but the Israeli military denied it was responsible.

Ali Alshwass was killed east of the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, medical sources said.

The Israeli military denied reports it had carried out an air strike killing the child.

"According to the findings of a preliminary investigation, what happened in Khan Yunis had nothing to do with any operation by the Israeli military," a spokeswoman said.

Witnesses said Israeli aircraft carried out at least four other strikes elsewhere in Gaza on Saturday.

One targeted militants travelling in a car in the Zeitoun neighbourhood east of Gaza city after they had fired rockets into Israel, witnesses said.

Two civilian bystanders suffered minor injuries, they added.

Raids also struck the Beit Lahiya area in the north and the Nusseirat and Al-Bureij refugee camps in the centre of the Gaza Strip, without causing any casualties, witnesses said.

Palestinian militants fired at least 23 rockets into southern Israel early Saturday, most of them hitting the town of Sderot close to the Gaza border, Israeli officials told AFP earlier.

A man was wounded when a rocket hit a building in Sderot, a police spokesman said.

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