Two Israelis wounded in attacks from WBank, Gaza

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Gunmen shot and seriously wounded an Israeli security guard on Sunday in the occupied West Bank and a rocket fired from Gaza wounded a woman in southern Israel, Israeli military spokesmen said.

The Palestinian Maan news agency said a caller from a group aligned with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, tied to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the West Bank shooting.

Israeli rescue workers said the guard was seriously wounded by gunfire, which media reports said was fired from close range, near a gas station in a West Bank village. The village was close to a Jewish settlement in the region of the city of Ramallah.

Islamic Jihad militants claimed responsibility for the rocket fired later that an Israeli military spokeswoman said slammed into a petrol station in the Israeli town of Sderot.

An Israeli woman was moderately injured by shrapnel from the falling rocket, the spokeswoman said.

Palestinians reported hearing an explosion in northern Gaza shortly after that rocket attack.

A security source in Gaza told Reuters the blast appeared to be the result of Israeli tank, artillery or air fire at gunmen, but there were no reported injuries.

But an Israeli army spokeswoman denied Israel had opened fire in Gaza and said the explosion appeared to have been caused by a rocket aimed at Israel that had misfired.

Palestinian gunmen have continued to fire crude rockets at Israel from Gaza despite a ceasefire called in late November, but casualties from these attacks have been rare.

(Additional reporting by Wafa Amr in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)