A Palestinian resistance fighter has been killed in an Israeli air attack on a car in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources and witnesses say.

Khaled Abu Sitta, 25, a senior leader from the Abu al-Rish Brigades, was killed on Saturday when an Israeli missile hit the car that he was driving near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunus, they said.

The missile tore through the vehicle, turning it into a pile of scorched and twisted metal. Angry crowds pulled Abu Sitta's body out of the wreckage and took him to a local mortuary where he was identified.

The Abu al-Rish Brigades, an armed group in the main Fatah faction, has been involved in firing rockets into Israel.

Israel has vowed to track down and kill fighters behind such attacks. On Wednesday, it killed four in the Gaza Strip in a strike on their car.

Earlier on Saturday, resistance fighters fired a rocket at an Israeli farming community near Gaza and the Israeli army responded by firing artillery shells towards open fields in northern Gaza. Nobody was hurt in either incident.

Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in September after a 38-year occupation.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinians examine the wreckage of a car after an explosion in the southern Gaza Strip December 17, 2005. (REUTERS)