Palestinian fighters have attacked Israeli positions at the Erez border crossing between Israel and Gaza hours after yesterday's killing of several civilians by the Israeli army.
An Israeli soldier is carried into a hospital in Beer Shaeva after being wounded by a Qassam rocket
One Palestinian fighter was killed in the attack according to a Israeli military spokesman.
"A terrorist cell infiltrated Erez. One of its members fired at a soldier and threw an explosive device at him. The soldier shot and killed the terrorist," the spokesman said today.
"There are on-going exchanges of fire around the crossing and three Palestinian policemen have been wounded and taken for treatment," he added.
The militant Islamic Jihad group and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said in a statement they jointly carried out the attack, hours after an Israeli tank shell killed seven Palestinian youths in a Gaza strawberry field.
Israel's army claimed it had targeted militants who had crept into the strawberry patch and fired mortar bombs into a nearby Jewish settlement, wounding two people.
The Israeli army commander in north Gaza expressed regret "if civilians were indeed hurt".
Violence has been mounting in Gaza ahead of the January 9 Palestinian election to choose a successor to Yasser Arafat as militants defy front-runner Mahmoud Abbas's calls for a ceasefire with Israel.
Israel has carried out a series of raids in Gaza over the past several weeks.