Israel air strikes kill two in Gaza

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli air strikes killed two Palestinians, at least one of them a Hamas militant, and wounded eight others in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the Islamist group and medical staff said.

The Israeli military confirmed it had carried out air strikes and said militants had been targeted.

One man was killed and three others wounded when a missile hit a house in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, medics and Hamas officials.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said that a number of armed men had been targeted. Hamas said they were civilians.

A Hamas gunman was killed in a strike earlier on Sunday, taking to six the number of militants killed in Israeli air strikes since members of the group drove bomb-laden vehicles into an Israeli border crossing on Saturday.

Two Palestinian teenagers died on Sunday of wounds sustained in an Israeli attack that killed Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana in the Gaza Strip last Wednesday, raising the total death toll in that incident to six, hospital staff said.

Nineteen Palestinians were killed in all on Wednesday, 13 of them described by medics as civilians, after militants killed three Israeli soldiers who were on an raid into the territory.

Israel, which pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, regularly launches raids which it says are aimed at militants responsible for cross-border rocket fire that has traumatized southern Israeli towns.