By DPA
Gaza City : An Israeli aircraft fired a missile near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, killing three Palestinians and wounding five others Wednesday morning, hospital officials said.
Two of the wounded were in critical condition, the chief of emergency at the Gaza Health Ministry said.
Witnesses said the missile landed near a school, and it was not immediately clear whether the dead or injured included civilians.
But an Israeli army spokeswoman in Tel Aviv, confirming the air strike, said it targeted a group of militants who were preparing to launch a mortar shell at Israel.
She said the number of mortar shells and locally produced Qassam and al-Quds rockets fired from Gaza since the beginning of the year had reached 2,000, with militants from the Strip firing at least 26 during the past 24 hours.
One mortar shell slightly injured an Israeli soldier at an army base near southern Gaza.
Since the Middle East conference in Annapolis, Maryland, last week at least 24 Palestinians, most of them Hamas militants, have been killed in Israeli air and artillery strikes and in gun battles with Israeli soldiers.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak Tuesday reiterated earlier warnings that a large-scale, longer-term military offensive in Gaza was becoming increasingly inevitable.
“Every day that passes brings us closer to an operation in Gaza. However, we are not eager about it and I hope the moment will not come,” he told Israel Army Radio.