Israeli troops kill 7 Palestinians in Gaza clashes
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A wounded Palestinian boy is transported to hospital after an Israeli tank shell was fired at Khan Younis. (Reuters: Ibraheem Mustafa)
Israeli troops killed three Palestinian gunmen and four civilians during a raid into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Thursday, witnesses and hospital officials said.
The Israeli army described the operation outside the town of Khan Younis as a hunt for militants who fire short-range rockets across the nearby border into the Jewish state.
A rocket landed north of the Israeli city of Ashkelon, 17 kilometres from Gaza, causing no damage or casualties. It was the furthest a Palestinian rocket had reached, the army said.
After the Ashkelon attack, Israeli warplanes bombed three buildings linked to Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. There was extensive damage but no immediate word of casualties.
The spike in violence came a week before US President George W Bush visits the region in a bid to build on November's peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, where Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to pursue talks.
Palestinian witnesses and medical officials said an Israeli tank fired at a home near Khan Younis, killing an Islamic Jihad militant outside. The shell also killed his mother, a sister and two brothers, who were inside the house at the time.
Another shell injured at least seven school children between the ages of eight and 10, hospital officials said. Medics said an Israeli tank fired the shell into a crowd. The Israeli army said it was checking into the report.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops had come under attack by local gunmen. A tank fired at a building after gunmen were spotted taking shelter in it, she said.
The army said its forces killed two gunmen in separate incidents. Hamas claimed them as its own.
At least 22 Palestinians were wounded in the clashes, most of them militants, hospital officials said.
The rocket attack on Ashkelon stirred concern in Israel, which says Palestinian factions are bolstering their underground arms-manufacturing facilities by smuggling in military grade munitions from neighbouring Egypt.
Islamic Jihad and another Palestinian militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, claimed responsibility for the rocket.
- Reuters
