GAZA CITY  - Israeli troops shot dead an unarmed Palestinian on the border in the Gaza Strip Thursday, the first fatality of a fragile three-week-old truce, prompting retaliatory rocket fire. Troops "identified a suspicious person crossing the fence from Gaza into Israel near Kissufim. The force called on him to stop and fired warning shots but he did not stop and the soldiers fired at him and killed him," an army spokesman said. "When they approached his body they saw he was unarmed," he said, adding that there had been several attempts by Palestinians to plant bombs in the border area. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party, claimed the man was one of its members. "We will respond to this crime soon," it said. Several hours later, two home-made rockets were fired on southern Israel from Gaza, without any initial report of casualties, the army claimed. The Brigades issued a statement saying it was responsible for "firing two rockets on the settlement of Sderot." The head of Gaza emergency services, Muawiya Hassanin, identified the slain Palestinian as Salim Jumaa al-Hamedi, 18. It was the first fatality since a truce in and around Hamas-ruled Gaza went into effect on June 19, although both sides have accused each other of violations. Meanwhile, Israeli security forces on Thursday shot and killed Talal Sa'ad Talal Abed, a Hamas member, who tried to escape arrest near the occupied West Bank town of Jenin, the army claimed in a statement. Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders are threatening to halt peace talks with Israel to protest the continued expansion of settlements in occupied territory, a senior Palestinian figure said on Thursday. The leadership is "studying and considering the possibility of freezing all relations with the Israeli government, including the negotiations, because the Israeli government is insisting on the policy of building new settlements in Palestinian territory, especially in Jerusalem," Yasser Abed Rabbo told a news conference. "We believe this is not only a violation of the understandings of the Annapolis Conference but an attempt by the Israeli government to undermine the process that was stated at the conference," added Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.