The events began when a sniper in Gaza shot a Bedouin Israeli citizen -- Salah Shukri Abu Latyef, 22 -- who was performing maintenance work Tuesday on the fence separating Israel from the Palestinian territory's northern border, the Israeli military said. Gaza City, Gaza (CNN) -- Israeli airstrikes and tank shells pounded parts of Gaza Tuesday -- killing a 4-year-old girl, Palestinian security and medical sources said -- after Israel said a Gaza sniper killed a Muslim Israeli man near a border fence. The easing of those restrictions were part of the understandings brokered by Egypt that brought an end in November 2012 to Operation Pillar of Defense against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office promised a forceful response, saying the shooting was a "very severe incident, and we will not let it go unanswered." "Our policy until now has been to act beforehand and to respond in force, and this is how we will act regarding this incident as well," Netanyahu's office said. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said there was "no direct relation" between terrorist attacks in Israel over the past two days and the cross-border shooting attack. "We will not allow life in the south to be disturbed, and we will react in the sternest and gravest way to any attack on our sovereignty and injuries of our civilians and soldiers," Ya'alon said in a statement released by the defense ministry. CNN's Saad Abedine, Hamdi Alkhshali, Kareem Khadder and Jason Hanna contributed to this report.
– Israel launched an airstrike in the Gaza Strip today, in retaliation for the shooting of an Israeli working on the border fence, the Israeli military said, according to the AP. The military gave no hint as to its target or how many casualties it may have inflicted, but Hamas security sources tell CNN that one 4-year-old girl was killed in the strike, and three others were wounded. All four belonged to a family that lived near an al Qassam Brigades camp that the attack appeared to be targeting. A Palestinian sniper shot Salah Shukri Abu Latyef, a 22-year-old civilian engineer, earlier today, the Jerusalem Post reports. He was airlifted to the hospital, where he died of his wounds. Benjamin Netanyahu called it a "very grave incident," and promised to "react with force" in accordance with longstanding policy. Palestinians have launched a series of attacks on Israeli targets in recent days; Israeli soldiers have fired on Palestinian suspects five times since Friday, including an incident yesterday in which they spotted a man planting a bomb and fired at his legs.