TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel carried out airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after an Israeli civilian was shot dead while fixing security fences on the border of the territory, officials said.
The Israeli military confirmed the strike — which came just hours after the shooting — but gave no immediate details on the target, The Associated Press reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised reprisal after a man was gunned down by a sniper earlier Tuesday as he did maintenance work on the Israel-Gaza security fence in the northern Gaza strip.
"This is a very severe incident and we will not let it go unanswered," Netanyahu said in a statement through his office.
"Our policy until now has been to act beforehand and to respond in force, and this is how we will act regarding this incident as well."
No one has claimed responsibility for the shooting.
The shooting victim was taken by an Israeli Air Force aircraft to the nearby Soroka Medical Center, in Beersheba, but hospital staff told NBC News later on Tuesday that he died from his wounds.
Haaretz reported the man was employed by Israel's Defense Ministry. The newspaper said he was helping repair part of the security fence damaged by extreme winter weather last week.
Army officials said the man was hit by a single gunshot, leading them to believe it was a sniper, according to Haaretz. They added that no gunfire was returned.
The man was the first Israeli killed on the Gaza frontier in more than a year.
However, violence in the West Bank has increased in recent months, with a bus bombing which wounded one person near Tel Aviv on Sunday and the stabbing of an Israeli policeman on Monday.
At least 19 Palestinians and four Israelis have been killed in the occupied territory since the U.S.-brokered talks on Palestinian statehood resumed in July after a three-year break, according to Reuters.
Alexander Smith reported from London. Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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