Israel kills five Palestinian gunmen
GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed three Palestinian gunmen in air strikes in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and two in a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, said Palestinian militants and hospital officials.
A total of 14 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces since a Hamas cross-border rocket attack killed an Israeli civilian on Wednesday, the first such death in the Jewish state in nine months.
Those killed in Thursday's air strikes on Gaza were a fighter from the Islamist Hamas movement and two from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) armed group. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the air force had targeted gunmen.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed the two militants in a raid on the Balata refugee camp, a hospital official and local residents said. The Israeli army spokeswoman said troops opened fire after spotting armed men threatening them.
The killing of the Israeli in Sderot, a town near the border with Gaza, seemed certain to increase public pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to order tougher military action in Gaza that might include a widescale ground operation.
"Southern Israel is continuously being hit by Palestinian rockets and mortars and this cannot and will not continue," said David Baker, a spokesman for Olmert.
The violence between Israel and militants in Gaza could complicate peace talks between Olmert's government and President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority that the United States hopes can lead to a deal on Palestinian statehood this year.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to visit the region next week. She and President George W. Bush are racing against time to conclude a deal before Bush leaves office in January.
Hamas, shunned by the West for refusing to recognize the Jewish state and renounce violence, seized control of the Gaza Strip last June by routing forces loyal to the secular Abbas.
Israel regularly carries out raids and air strikes in the Gaza Strip to try and stop rocket attacks by Palestinian militants. Israeli troops and settlers quit the coastal territory in 2005.
(Additional reporting by Atef Saad in Nablus, Writing by Dan Williams and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Editing by Ralph Gowling)
