Gaza: Israeli artillery fire killed a Palestinian and wounded two on Saturday in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian emergency services said.

All three, aged in their 20s, were taken to Shifa hospital in Gaza. Their identities were not immediately known.

The shooting took place in an area east of Gaza City, the medics said, adding that the Israelis opened fire after Palestinian mortar shells were fired into the south of the Jewish state.

An Israeli military spokesman told AFP that he had no knowledge of Saturday's incident but that a mortar shell had been fired on Friday from the Gaza Strip without causing casualties or damage where it landed in the western sector of the Negev desert.