The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday afternoon that troops had killed a Palestinian and wounded another near the sites from where Qassams were launched at the Western Negev. The army said the two were militants who had come to collect the rocket launchers.

A 15-year-old was moderately wounded when a Qassam rocket hit a kibbutz in the Western Negev early on Wednesday.

Paramedics rushed the youth to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon after he was struck in the chest by a piece of shrapnel.

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According to an Army Radio report, the youth was from the Bedouin village of Rahat in the Western Negev.

Another woman was treated for shock after the attack.

A second Qassam hit landed in the greenhouses of the Erez communal farm that borders the Gaza Strip, but no casualties or damage were caused as a result of the attack.

Earlier Wednesday, the Israel Air Force carried out an air strike on a house in the militant stronghold of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early, causing no casualties, the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian witnesses said.

"There was an aerial attack on a house which was used as a facility to store weapons," an IDF spokeswoman said.

She added that residents had been warned in advance to leave the building.

Witnesses said the house, which was destroyed, belonged to a Palestinian militant. It was unclear which faction the militant belonged to. They added that the house had been vacated before the attack.

Israel has carried out frequent air strikes on the territory during an offensive launched in late June after militants from Gaza abducted IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid.