Palestinians die in Israeli raids

Six Palestinians have been killed and 11 others wounded in the Gaza Strip in three Israeli raids on the Hamas-run territory, medics and witnesses said.

Three men, two of them from the Islamic Jihad group, and a third from the armed wing of Hamas, were killed around the southern town of Khan Yunis on Thursday.

The Israeli army said infantry units carried out a "routine operation", targeting gunmen who were firing rockets and mortars into Israel. "Units that entered several kilometres into the Gaza Strip were fired at by an anti-tank shell. They responded and hit three armed men," a spokesman said.

Six people were also wounded in the attack.

Air raid

Shortly afterwards, two Islamic Jihad fighters were killed and two wounded in an air raid in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.

"The military carried out an air raid in the central Gaza Strip against a vehicle loaded with weapons and carrying terrorists that was headed to carry out an attack," an Israeli spokesman said.

A third Israeli raid, which witnesses said was carried out by either helicopters or drones, killed an Islamic Jihad fighter and wounded two more south of Gaza City, medical sources said.

Islamic Jihad named the dead man as Mohammed Abdullah, 40, a senior commander of its Al-Quds Brigades military wing.

Last week, Israeli forces killed Majed al-Harazin, Islamic Jihad's Gaza commander, and 12 other fighters in a series of raids.

Thursday's deaths brought to 6,005 the number of people killed since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP tally.

In the West Bank, the Israeli army announced it had arrested Mohammed Abdel Rahman, a wanted member of the Islamic Jihad.
 

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