A Palestinian who was preparing to throw a grenade at an Israeli patrol was shot dead by Israeli troops Friday in the north of the Gaza Strip, an army spokesman said.
Public radio was quoted by AFP as saying that a young Palestinian woman who was on the scene with the man, close to the Alai Sinai settlement, managed to escape.
The spokesman said army experts defused an explosive device which was also found at the site.
Earlier Friday, the Israeli army launched a pre-dawn operation in a Palestinian-controlled area of Hebron on Friday, destroying one Palestinian target and leaving 17 wounded, Palestinian security and hospital sources said, quoted by the agency.
Troops backed by armored vehicles destroyed an outpost of Force 17, Palestinian presidential guard unit, as well as a Palestinian checkpoint in Hebron, sources said.
Three Force 17 members were wounded in that attack, said the report.
Fourteen other Palestinians were hurt in a hail of Israeli shell and machine-gun fire in several sectors of the flashpoint town in the southern West Bank.
Power to the city was cut during the operation.
Israeli military sources did not confirm the shelling, but according to Israeli public radio, the troops later withdrew on to Israeli-controlled soil, said AFP.
Meanwhile, the agency said that Jewish settler shot and wounded by Palestinian gunfire on Thursday near Hebron in the occupied West Bank has died of his injuries, citing Israeli army radio reported Friday.
The dead lived in the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba close to the flashpoint town of Hebron, and was a member of the settlement's local council, the report said.
The death brought to 32 the number of people killed -- 20 Palestinians and 12 Israelis -- since a would-be US-brokered ceasefire went into effect in June 13.
The death toll since the Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, began in late September rose to 646 -- 504 Palestinians, 123 Israelis, 13 Arab Israelis and six Europeans.
On Thursday, a Palestinian policeman was killed and seven others were wounded Thursday when Israel bombarded the West Bank city of Nablus in "retaliation" for ambushes that wounded four Jewish settlers.
Israel unleashed tank and machinegun fire on Palestinian police posts soon after the attacks, killing 22-year-old Mohammad Ata Abu Fayyadh as other confrontations raged across the region.
The Israeli army said that it had entered Palestinian controlled Area A near Nablus, taking control of a hill that overlooked the site of a Palestinian ambush, and that tanks had shelled a Palestinian preventive security outpost in the area, destroying it, said Haaretz newspaper.
The Israeli army hit Nablus after Jewish settler Erez Shmulyan, 26, was shot in the head at close range by Palestinians reportedly disguised in Israeli army uniforms near the West Bank settlement of Bar Harha close to Nablus.
His wife and baby daughter, who were in the car with him, were lightly injured, said Israeli reports.
The military wing of Fateh movement, Al Aqsa Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement to Al Jazeera satellite TV channel.
The dead settler was critically wounded Thursday in a drive-by shooting near the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of the West Bank trouble-spot of Hebron, settler sources told AFP.
A Palestinian passerby was also lightly wounded in the same attack, said the agency.
Al Jazeera reported that Israeli troops had imposed a total blockade on Hawara village in southern Nablus and also shelled a nearby village, Kufu Qallil.
In Gaza, Israeli tanks shelled Khan Yunis city earlier in the day, destroying several Palestinian houses, said WAFA.
There were no reports of casualties.
Since the fall 2000 outbreak of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, CNN reports that Palestinians have killed over 112 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and over 458 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to Amnesty International, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children.
In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded, and over 520 killed - Albawaba.com
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