Israel says that its assault in Gaza, where more than 200 Palestinians have been killed since late June, is aimed at securing the release of a soldier snatched by militants nearly three months ago, and stopping rocket attacks.
Thursday's violence came just hours after the four major powers sponsoring stalled peace efforts voiced strong support for a bid by moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to form a government with radical Islamist movement Hamas.
In northern Gaza three Palestinians were killed and several wounded in an Israeli strike not far from the sprawling Jabaliya refugee camp, medics said.
"Three Palestinians died after being injured by two missiles fired by an Israeli drone near the cemetery on the eastern side of the Jabaliya refugee camp," Said Mahmoud Al Asli, a doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
But the military denied carrying out an airstrike, instead saying that a shell was fired at three people collecting a makeshift rocket launcher used to fire toward the southern Israeli town of Sderot.
"They started handling the launcher. We fired at them and identified hitting them," a spokesman said.
Jabaliya is a favorite staging area for militants firing rockets into southern Israel because they can quickly disappear into the camp's tangled warren of alleyways after launching their projectiles.
Palestinian militants fired two makeshift rockets, known as Qassams, into southern Israel Thursday, one damaging a water pipe in Sderot and the other landing in open areas in the western Negev Desert.
In the southern Gaza Strip, a 35-year-old Palestinian mother was killed and three of her children wounded when an Israeli tank shell exploded in the Rafah region in the southern Gaza Strip, hospital sources said.
She died during an Israeli incursion and as Palestinian militants blew up a house that Israeli troops had occupied. Seven suspected militants were arrested during the operation, Palestinian security officials said.
A 24-year-old male in the same extended family as the woman later died from bullet wounds, hospital officials said.
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that an operation was underway in the Rafah area after being launched overnight. It identified hitting an armed man in the area.
Overall more than 200 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its massive operation to recover a captured soldier, returning troops to a territory that they left in 2005 after a 38-year occupation.
Living conditions for the 1.4 million people in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated sharply since Israel bombed its only power station and after the West ended direct aid when Hamas took office six months ago.
The European Union and United States consider Hamas a terrorist organization for its decade-long campaign of suicide bombings in Israel.
Despite not carrying out any such attack in Israel for more than 18 months, its militants jointly claimed a June 25 raid when Palestinians tunneled into Israel, snatched Corporal Gilad Shalit, and killed two other Israeli soldiers.
Today the Gaza economy has ground to a near complete halt given closures and Western aid boycotts, fueling unprecedented fiscal and political crisis that Palestinians hope can be stemmed by the creation of a unity government.
In New York late Wednesday, the European Union, Russia, United Nations, and United States voiced their support for a bid by Abbas to form a government with Hamas, although the group still refuses to recognize Israel.
The so-called quartet also announced an agreement to extend for three months temporary emergency aid for the Palestinian territories.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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