One Palestinian was killed and three wounded on Monday afternoon when Israeli army tanks fired a shell at an area near the border between eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, medics and witnesses said.

The witnesses said that a group of militants fired a homemade rocket from the area at the southern Israel, adding that an Israeli army tank stationed at the area hit them with a shell.

Medics at al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza Strip said that Bassam Badwan, 32, was killed and three others were injured, two of them seriously.

Meanwhile, a militant group called Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), said that one of its members was killed and three others wounded in the shelling.

Israeli Radio quoted an Israeli army spokesman as saying that an Israeli army force hit a group of militants in northeastern Gaza Strip who fired a homemade rocket from the area at southern Israel.