GAZA CITY, 15 December 2004 — A Palestinian policeman was killed and two of his colleagues were wounded yesterday by Israeli Army gunfire in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources said.

Samir Khafaja, 29, a member of the national security forces, was killed in the shooting near Gaza airport, which has been closed for several years. His two colleagues were in a critical condition.

An Israeli military source said soldiers had opened fire toward “three suspicious shadows who were crawling” toward the Israeli-controlled border between Gaza and Egypt

“At least two of the silhouettes were hit,” the source added.

Medical sources in Gaza also said a nine-year-old Palestinian schoolboy had been wounded by Israeli fire late yesterday in the nearby town of Rafah.

Meanwhile, the United States yesterday denied it had held contacts with Hamas as a leader of the Palestinian group has claimed.

“We don’t conduct business with designated terrorist organizations. Hamas is a designated terrorist organization,” US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

“We are not aware of anything at all that would substantiate such a reference,” he said in reference to an interview given by Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal to the BBC.

In the interview, Meshaal suggested that Hamas was gaining international legitimacy and that it was in communication with the European Union and the United States behind the scenes. “The American administration, which also put us on terror lists and criticizes us, contacted us in the past months,” the Palestinian official said.

Hamas is leading an armed struggle against Israel and has called for a boycott of the Palestinian election on Jan. 9. Other radical Palestinian groups such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are also on the US terrorist list.

Also yesterday, a Thai woman working at a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip died from shrapnel injuries after a mortar shell fired by Palestinians exploded.

Hospital sources did not release the name of the woman, who had been employed as an agricultural worker in the Ganei Tal settlement near the town of Khan Yunis. Two other Thai workers were lightly wounded when Palestinians fired mortar rounds at Ganei Tal after Israeli forces staged an incursion into Khan Yunis, flattening around 15 buildings.