RAFAH, Gaza Strip, Aug 5 (AFP) - An explosion went off in the path of a car carrying a local leader of a Palestinian militant group in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday but without causing any casualties.
The car was carrying Jamal Abu Samadana, the head of the military branch of the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella militant faction loosely linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.
According to a statement by the group, Samadana was the target of "an assassination attempt by an Israeli helicopter," but witnesses and an AFP photographer at the scene said no helicopters were flying overhead.
The Israeli military made no comment on the incident.