At least one Palestinian was killed and three others were injured Saturday morning in an Israeli artillery shelling in northern Gaza Strip border town of Beit Hanoun, witnesses and paramedics said.

The casualties were shepherds grazing their cattle when an Israeli missile landed near them. Witnesses said the Israeli strike came shortly after home-made rockets were fired from the area into Israel.

Hospital sources said two of the wounded have received critical injuries.

The Israeli army has repositioned artillery batteries alongside the security fence in northern Gaza Strip, a common place from where the Palestinian militants launch their makeshift rockets.

Eight Palestinians, most of them Hamas fighters, were killed yesterday in several Israeli air strikes in Gaza Strip as the army stepped up military operations for the first time since last November ceasefire deal.

A metal workshop was badly damaged in predawn bombing by Israeli F-16 warplanes in Gaza city and tank shells kept falling in northern Gaza Strip since midnight.

Source: Xinhua