Israeli soldiers kill 2 Palestinians

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israel killed two Palestinian men on Wednesday, one during a raid in the occupied West Bank, and another in an air strike in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics and security sources said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed both incidents.

In the latest attack, Israel fired at two armed Palestinians in Gaza "who were spotted planting explosives," the spokeswoman said.

Hamas said that one of its militants was killed in the attack.

Earlier, troops opened fire on a Palestinian man during an arrest raid on a house in the West Bank town of Hebron, the spokeswoman said. She said the soldiers opened fire after a group of men assaulted them and tried to grab their weapons.

A Palestinian security source told Reuters that soldiers came to a house in Hebron before dawn and shot a man who answered the door, killing him, then shot his wife, wounding her.

Medics said the man killed in Hebron was 67. Three other men in the home were also wounded by gunfire, the source said.

Israel has stepped up raids against suspected militants in the West Bank and Gaza, in response to an increasing number of rocket attacks from Gaza against Israeli towns in the past few weeks.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mugrabi in Gaza)