At least one person was killed and two were wounded in an explosion in the Gaza Strip today and a Palestinian militant group accused Israel of trying to kill its fighters in a strike on their car.
The Israeli army denied involvement, but said it carried out an air strike on gunmen it believed were trying to penetrate the fence around the Gaza Strip and had hit one militant.
Palestinian witnesses said there was a small crater and what looked like pieces of a missile near the car.
They said Israeli helicopters were hovering over the area - near to where the army acknowledged opening fire.
The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees umbrella militant group said its fighters had been travelling in the car but escaped the explosion. A spokesman for the group said a bystander was killed. Medics confirmed one civilian was dead.
"The army stresses that it had no involvement in the blast," an army statement said.
Israel has often targeted Palestinian militants in air strikes on the Gaza Strip, but fighters have also regularly been killed when their own homemade bombs or rockets exploded prematurely.
Israel had been considering its response after a suicide bombing by the Islamic Jihad faction wounded 30 people in Tel Aviv last week.
Tension is high in the Gaza Strip ahead of Palestinian parliamentary elections on January 25th, in which the Islamic militant group Hamas is challenging President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction for the first time.