By DPA
Gaza/Ramallah : Five people were killed and five wounded in latest Israeli airstrikes on security forces of the Islamic Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
Another two armed Palestinians were killed and when they opened fire on a police patrol on the West Bank border with East Jerusalem, injuring four officers, Israeli media reported.
Eyewitnesses and security sources said that firefighters and ambulances rushed to the targeted areas in Gaza Saturday after four huge explosions were heard in the densely populated area of Zeitoon in southern Gaza City, as well as in the western part of the city.
Israeli planes then struck at the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza Strip. Israeli media reported fresh strikes against Hamas forces in Rafah and a building in Jabaliya refugee camp Friday evening.
Hamas responded by threatening to murder Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who has been held captive since June 2006, media reports said.
"Israel can forget about Shalit, if leading members of Hamas die," a spokesperson for the armed wing of the Palestinian movement was quoted as saying.
The Hamas spokesman also said renewed suicide attacks in Israel were only a matter of time.
Pillars of smoke were seen rising from areas targeted by Israeli planes, while ambulances rushed to the scene to evacuate casualties, eyewitnesses said.
Palestinian paramedics said that of the five wounded from the first airstrike in the Zeitoon neighbourhood, two were still in critical condition in Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, Israeli army soldiers seized Hamas state minister Wasfi Qubaha at his home in northern West Bank city of Jenin, his family confirmed.
Qubaha, 43, is the second Hamas minister in the national coalition that Israel has detained within the last three days after taking Nasser el-Dein el-Sha'er, minister of education, from his home in Ramallah.
Qubaha's daughter told reporters that Israeli army troops surrounded their house before dawn Saturday before storming the house and detaining her father.
She added that the soldiers searched into her father's room and confiscated documents and her father's laptop computer.
Israel says that the arrest of Hamas leaders in the West Bank is a message to the Hamas movement to stop immediately launching homemade rockets from Gaza at Israeli towns in southern Israel.
Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources reported Saturday that another Israeli army unit stormed the office of the al-Waqf (Islamic Properties) ministry in the city of Jenin, confiscating files and three laptops. The ministry is run by Hamas movement in the national unity government.