Seven dead as Israel battles militants in southern Gaza (1st Lead)

Jan 3, 2008, 13:39 GMT

Gaza City - Israeli troops rolled into southern Gaza early Thursday, sparking fierce fighting with local militants in which at least seven Palestinians were killed, including five members of the same family, hospital officials said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the incursion into the south-eastern outskirts of the town of Khan Younis was a 'routine' operation against daily rocket fire from the Strip at southern Israel.

She said militants opened fire, threw grenades and fired anti-tank missiles at the force, which responded by calling in air support and with tank shelling, including at a house from which gunmen were firing at the troops.

Five members of the Fayyad family were killed in the shelling of the house. At at least three of them were civilians - the mother, her 18-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son.

Another son, Sami Fayyad, 23, who was also killed, was identified as a militant of the radical Islamic Jihad faction, which has taken the forefront in the rocket attacks against Israel during the past months.

The body of Mohammad Fayyad, believed to be the father of the family, was also pulled from the wreckage of the house in the early afternoon.

At least two other militants of the radical Islamic Hamas movement ruling Gaza were also killed in the fighting, and 25 people injured, most of them militants and many were in a serious condition, officials at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said.

The fighting came as Palestinian militants fired a Katyusha missile at a residential neighbourhood in the southern Israeli port city of Ashqelon, the Israeli military said.

The militants also fired several other, locally-made Qassam and al-Quds rockets at Israel.

Meanwhile, Israeli F-16 fighter jets bombed several buildings in Gaza City, south of Gaza City and near Rafah in the south Thursday afternoon, after giving prior warnings to the owners, witnesses said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed three airstrikes, one at a rocket warehouse of the Islamic Jihad, the other at the house of an Islamic Jihad activist and the third at a Hamas building.

No one was injured, as the buildings had been evacuated, but they were completely destroyed, the witnesses said.

The escalation of violence in Gaza comes days before US President George W Bush is due to arrive in the region for a three-day visit next week aimed at advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The visit is to be his first to Israel and the West Bank since he took office.