Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday killed one gunman and wounded five other Palestinians, medical sources said, after militants in the Hamas-controlled territory fired rockets into southern Israel.

No injuries were reported in a rocket attack on the Israeli city of Beersheba, where officials said the projectiles landed in open ground.

The Israeli military said its aircraft attacked four targets in the Gaza Strip in response and confirmed "direct hits".

Medical sources affiliated with Hamas, an Islamist movement that seized the enclave in a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007, said three gunmen involved in the rocket attacks were hit in one of the air strikes and one later died of his wounds.

Three Palestinian civilians, one of them a boy, were also hurt in the Israeli attacks, the sources said.