Israel kills Palestinian on Gaza beach amid border clashes

A Palestinian has been killed and three others injured by Israeli shelling.

The New Arab's Gaza Arabic-language correspondent said Israeli gunboats fired the shots which killed the 23-year-old man on a beach in the besieged coastal strip.

Earlier reports from AFP - quoting an Israeli military spokesman - suggested that Israeli war planes were responsible for the attack.

The killings took place in Beit Lehya, northern Gaza, close to the Israeli border.

A Senior Hamas official, Salah al-Bardawil, warned Israel after the strike that "targeting citizens in Beit Lahiya this morning is playing with fire".

Israel military sources claimed the men were militants planning a bomb attack on troops on the Gaza border, AFP reported.

It provided no further details on the attack.

A Gaza health ministry spokesman confirmed that one person was killed and three wounded.

Palestinian officials named the dead man as Musa Abu Zuaiter and said he was killed by Israeli rocket fire.

Israel has usually launched attacks on Gaza in "response" to rocket attacks on Israeli villages, fired from the besieged Palestinian territories.

However, there was no reports of rocket fire from Gaza before Wednesday's strike, although skirmishes have taken place between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

"Forces guarding the border with Gaza face a growing threat from hostile terror groups attempting to destabilise the situation on the ground," Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said in a statement.

In 2014, Israel launched a devastating wave of attacks on Gaza, destroying thousands of homes and killing over 2,000 people, mostly civilians.

Gaza has been under siege by Egypt and Israel since 2007, depriving residents of basic commodities, as well as tools and materials needed to rebuild their homes.