OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli forces on Sunday shot dead a Palestinian suspected of placing a bomb near the Gaza border, before extracting his body with a bulldozer, the army said.

"Following the successful thwarting of the attack near the Gaza Strip fence earlier this morning, an IDF (Israeli army) bulldozer extracted the body of one of the attackers," a military spokeswoman told AFP.

Earlier Sunday, the army had said it "spotted two terrorists approaching the security fence in the southern Gaza Strip and placing an explosive device adjacent to it".

"The troops opened fire toward them. A hit was identified," a military statement said.

Following the incident, a video from Gaza emerged on social media showing a bulldozer approaching the body as young, apparently unarmed men, were trying to collect it.

The sound of gunfire is heard and the men ultimately run away as the bulldozer collects the body. A tank can be seen positioned nearby.

The Gaza health ministry said that two civilians were wounded by Israeli gunfire at the scene.

Hawkish Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett has pursued a policy of retaining the bodies of militants from Gaza as bargaining chips to pressure Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Palestinian enclave, which has been holding the bodies of two Israeli soldiers since 2014.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement identified Sunday's fatality as Mohammed Al-Naem, 27, a member of their armed Al-Quds Brigade forces.

The Israeli army meanwhile distributed footage of "the explosive device the terror squad placed this morning," noting that the same Jihad "squad was involved in two previous attempts to place IEDs (improvised explosive devices) near the fence during the last few months". — AFP