An Israeli warplane bombed and destroyed a home in the Gaza Strip early on Wednesday, killing a teenage girl in a neighbouring building and wounding 10 other people.

The Israeli army confirmed it had fired at a house which it said was camouflaging a weapons-smuggling tunnel in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border.

Dr. Ali Mousa, the director of Rafah's hospital, said that a 14 year-old girl had died when a block from the house ricocheted into a neighbouring building causing it to collapse.

He said 10 other people were wounded by the blast, most of them women and children who suffered broken bones, bruises and shrapnel wounds.

The Israeli strike came hours after a rocket fired from Gaza wounded an off-duty Israeli soldier in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

Israel has stepped up military operations in Gaza, a coastal strip it had withdrawn from last year, after Palestinian fighters captured a soldier in a June 25 cross-border raid.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian medical workers stretcher the body of Mohamed Abu Amra, 24, into Rafah Hospital in the southern of Gaza Strip. (AFP)