Israeli helicopters attacked Palestinian police and security facilities in several places in the Gaza Strip early on Sunday, eyewitnesses and police said.
At Khan Younis in the south of the Strip twenty Palestinians were injured, two of them by shrapnel, and one - an 11 year-old boy -when a wall collapsed on him, hospital officials said.
In Khan Younis more than 12 missiles fired by the helicopters struck a military intelligence position and an office of Force 17, Palestinian police said.
At Deir el-Ballah in the central Gaza Strip the regional office of Yasser Arafat's Fatah party was struck and at Sudaniye in the northern Gaza Strip the headquarters of the Palestinian naval police were rocketed.
Ambulances rushed to the naval police facility and rescue teams searched through the rubble, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The air strikes came hours after an Israeli soldier was killed and two were wounded in a mortar attack on the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom, near Khan Younis.
The Israeli army spokesman said the air attack was a reaction to repeated mortar attacks by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks. Bureau Report