A seven-year-old Palestinian girl was killed yesterday as she was eating lunch in her home. Israeli troops had opened fire in response to a mortar attack which wounded four residents of a nearby Jewish settlement.

Relatives said that a single Israeli bullet had passed through Rana Sian's head and hit her father in the leg as the family sat at the table eating rice and meat in their home in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

Palestinian medics said the Israelis were retaliating for the earlier mortar attack on the Gaza settlement of Neveh Dekalim which seriously injured an 18-year-old man and an eight-year-old boy. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, which also slightly injured two other men.