By DPA
Gaza : Israeli forces killed four Palestinians Tuesday during operations in the south-eastern Gaza Strip, which an Israeli military spokesman said were aimed at preventing rocket attacks against the Jewish state.
Medical officials said Israeli snipers shot a mother and her 25-year-old son while they were in their house.
An Israel Defence Force (IDF) spokeswoman in Tel Aviv said she could not comment on this specific incident, but added that the soldiers in the southeastern strip were firing at sources of gunfire against them.
Earlier Tuesday, Palestinians said, army snipers shot dead a local resident who was on his rooftop watching the army operation. Ibraheem al-Shami fell from the roof after being injured and died at the scene.
The first fatality occurred early Tuesday, when helicopters launched an airstrike in the area, killing a Hamas militant who was confronting army tanks rolling into al-Qarara neighbourhood, hospital officials said.
The strike killed Mohammed Abu Musameh, 24, and wounded more than 10 others, including gunmen who were monitoring the Israeli army incursion.
“His body was completely torn since the rocket hit him directly,” a spokesman for Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said.
Local residents said Israeli troops entered the area shortly after midnight, following clashes between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli undercover forces who Palestinians said had infiltrated Palestinian territories adjacent to the border fence.
The Israeli forces were backed by air cover.
A military spokesman in Tel Aviv said the operation was directed against rocket launchings which target adjacent Israeli towns and villages on an almost daily basis, and troops were also instructed to search for, and destroy, tunnels which may have been dug under the border fence separating Gaza and Israel.
The operation was still ongoing Tuesday morning, with residents saying the Israelis were sending reinforcements toward the Gaza Strip, in addition to the more than 20 tanks and bulldozers operating in the area.