Aide to Israeli security minister shot near Gaza

By Yehuda Peretz

ASHKELON, Israel (Reuters) - An aide to Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter was wounded by gunfire from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Friday during a border tour with a delegation from Canada, medical staff said.

Hamas and an offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement claimed joint responsibility for the shooting in a videotape obtained by Reuters.

The tape, released by Hamas, shows gunmen firing automatic weapons at an Israeli army watchtower and a convoy of vehicles near Gaza's border fence with Israel.

The second group identified itself as al-Aqsa's Protectors, affiliated with al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Abbas's Fatah faction.

After the shooting, Israeli forces crossed the border into the central Gaza Strip, clashing with militants and wounding one civilian girl, Hamas and hospital officials said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops, fearing similar cross-border gunfire, clashed with armed militants inside the territory.

Dichter's aide was taken to hospital with a gunshot wound to the buttocks, a hospital spokesman told Reuters. Dichter was nearby but was not injured in the shooting.

"I was standing with a group of about 20 people and suddenly fire was opened from the Palestinian side," Dichter told reporters at Barzilai hospital in the Israeli city of Ashkelon where his aide was hospitalised.