By Xinhua,
Gaza : Three Islamic Hamas militants were killed and two wounded on Thursday night in an Israeli airstrike on a group of militants in northern Gaza Strip, medics and witnesses said.
Mo’aweya Hassanein, chief of emergency service in the Palestinian health ministry, told reporters that three dead Palestinians and two wounded were brought to a local hospital on Thursday night.
Hassanein rounded up the death toll in the Gaza Strip during a daylong of Israeli-militants violence, saying 14 Palestinians were killed and more than 45 wounded in northern and southern Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Hamas armed wing said in a statement that a Hamas militant was killed and two wounded in the fresh Israeli airstrike on a group of Hamas militants near Khoza’a village east of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip.
Earlier on Thursday, seven Palestinians were killed and 40 wounded in a mysterious explosion wrecked a 4-store building in the village of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza Strip.
Hamas movement and the interior ministry in Gaza said that Israeli warplanes hit the building by one missile, killing seven people, including five Hamas militants and two civilians and wounded 40 others.
An Israeli Army spokesman denied if any Israeli warplane was involved in any airstrike carried out on the area in northern Gaza Strip, saying that it was an accident and the Israeli army has nothing to do with it.
In response, Hamas armed wing al-Qassam Brigades fired a barrage of 50 mortar shells and homemade rockets at Israeli communities surrounding the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Two Israelis were injured.
However, Abu Obeida, spokesman of Hamas military wing al-Qassam Brigades, told reporters that his group opened an inquiry to investigate the circumstances of the explosion, adding “we will announce the results as soon the investigations are finalized.”
Also on early Thursday morning, two militants were killed in a gunbattle with Israeli soldiers that lasted for nearly one hour near the border between the northern tip of the Gaza Strip and Israel.
One militant is affiliated with President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement and the other is a member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The Israeli army also said that a Palestinian militant, who approached the fence of the border between northeastern Gaza Strip and Israel, was shot dead. The militant’s body is still kept by the Israeli army.
Israeli soldiers thwarted an attempt to drive a booby-trapped vehicle from northern Gaza Strip into an Israeli territory to blow it up against soldiers, added the army.
The escalation of violence came one day after the Israeli minor cabinet decided to give the Egyptian efforts a chance to reach a truce between Israel and Gaza militants led by Hamas movement.
In parallel, the Israeli cabinet asked the Israeli army to be prepared for a large-scale operation into the Gaza Strip in case the Egyptian efforts to reach a temporary truce are failed.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum on Thursday accused Israel of obstructing the efforts to reach a truce and said that Hamas patience “would run out soon if Israel continues with its offensive against Gaza.”
“Israel is dealing in double policy with truce efforts in order to gain more enough time to prepare for its large-scale aggression on the Gaza Strip,” Barhoum told reporters in Gaza.