Israel kills 5 Palestinians in Gaza: medics

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli air strikes killed five
Palestinians, including two militants, in southern Gaza on
Saturday, as troops moved closer to a refugee camp as part of
an offensive against militants, medics and witnesses said.

A militant from the leading Hamas group was killed in the
latest strike, medics said. The Israeli army confirmed it had
targeted a Palestinian gunmen near the town of Rafah. An
earlier similar attack in the area had killed an Islamic Jihad
militant.

Medics also reported early on Saturday that a missile fired
by an Israeli aircraft hit near a house in Rafah, killing three
and wounding several members of a family, who had been fleeing
Israeli gunfire, witnesses said.

Two children were also among the wounded, medics said.

An Israeli army spokesman said the only strikes the
military had carried out in Gaza close to the time of the
attack on the family took place about 2 km (1.2 miles) away
from Rafah, in which two groups of Palestinian militants were
targeted.

Israeli forces swept into the Rafah area on Thursday to
destroy what the army called “terrorist infrastructure” as part
of a wider offensive against militants, launched after gunmen
captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid on June 25.

Palestinian witnesses said that minutes before the strike,
Israeli tanks rolled closer to Rafah’s refugee camp and that
troops had taken over a nearby Palestinian security post and
shots were fired in the area.

An Israeli army spokesman said there was military activity
in the territory and that he was checking the report.

Israel’s Gaza offensive has killed at least 166
Palestinians, more than half of them civilians.

Israel killed three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on
Friday as it launched a series of air strikes on militant
targets that wounded four other people, witnesses and medics
said.

Israeli troops in the Rafah area have already taken over a
3-5 sq km (1.9-2.7 sq mile) area, carried out house-to-house
searches and destroyed greenhouses and chicken farms.

Israel has rejected demands by the three militant groups
that had captured Corporal Gilad Shalit in the raid, which
includes Hamas, to trade the soldier for Palestinian prisoners.

Israel’s offensive has increased pressure on Hamas, which
rose to power in March, and had been under a Western aid
embargo to try to force it to recognize Israel, renounce
violence and accept peace deals.