Palestinian medical teams returned from the scene reporting no injuries as the targeted house was empty.

Palestinian security sources said the house and a car parked outside were both badly damaged by the blasts, in what was the seventh Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip in four (eds: correct) days.

An Israeli army spokesman said the gunships targeted a weapons workshop for building Qassam rockets, which are used by the Islamic radical movement Hamas to attack southern Israel from the Gaza Strip.

"IDF helicopters attacked an arms workshop for Qassam rockets, mortar shells and other weapons," he said, adding that several explosions rocked the building after the strike.

Just hours earlier, helicopter gunships fired missiles in the Al-Sabra area of eastern Gaza, killing a member of Hamas and injuring 26 other people, many of them children, Palestinian sources said.

The latest death brought to 3,344 the number of people killed since the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian uprising, including 2,518 Palestinians and 766 Israelis, according to an AFP count.

WAR.WIRE