Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Several weeks of relative calm in the Gaza Strip ended with an explosion and gunfire on Tuesday.

One Israeli soldier died and four others were wounded in a bomb blast; and two Palestinian terrorists were killed by gunfire from Israeli troops.

The violence erupted one day after Palestinian leaders met with Syrian President Bashar Assad for the first time in years.

Hamas claimed responsibility for Tuesday's early-morning attack, in which an Israeli soldier and his bomb-sniffing dog were blown up while searching for hidden weapons in the northern Gaza Strip. Palestinians reportedly opened fire on Israeli forces who were evacuating wounded troops.

In the West Bank overnight, Israeli forces sealed two offices of the outlawed Dawa (Islamic Charity Fund) in the Hebron area. The offices, which are part of Hamas, provided financial assistance to arrested terrorists and the families of suicide bombers, the army said.

Dawa "uses the guise of charity funds to funnel money to terror," the army said in a statement.

Coordination

Tuesday's violence in the Gaza Strip comes as Palestinians prepare for their scheduled January 9 elections.

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) met with Syrian President Assad on Monday -- a meeting that reportedly ended decades of Syrian-Palestinian hostilities.

Even though Syria allows Palestinian terror organizations to operate in its capital, relations between Syria and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had been strained for years.
Twenty years ago, Damascus backed an internal rebellion against Arafat. Syria also accused Arafat of betraying his people and the Arab world when he signed the Oslo Accords with Israel in the mid-1990s.

On Monday, both sides spoke about an agreement to coordinate future actions regarding the peace process with Israel.