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Israel kills 5 Palestinians in Gaza: medics

Posted on: Friday, 4 August 2006, 22:57 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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