Israeli air strikes and troops killed five Palestinian fighters in Gaza on Friday, as the Jewish state pressed its campaign to curb rocket fire after backing moves to cut power to the territory.
The bitter clashes marked the deadliest day of Israeli-Palestinian violence in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip for a month and came as Israeli and Palestinian leaders Ehud Olmert and Mahmud Abbas were holding political talks in Jerusalem.
Two Israeli air strikes in the Shujayah neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City killed three militants and wounded five, medical officials said as Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters clashed on the ground.
Two of the dead and two of the wounded belonged to the armed wing of hard-line movement Islamic Jihad. The third dead militant was named as Mahmud Hasouna, 25, from the armed wing of Hamas.
Earlier ground clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters left two Gaza gunmen dead - one from Hamas near Jabaliya in northern Gaza and the other from the rival Islamic Jihad in southern Gaza, medics said.
The army said Palestinian militants had also fired at least 20 rockets and mortar shells towards Israel in the past 24 hours. Friday's deaths brought to 5,909 the number of people killed since 2000 in Israeli-Palestinian violence, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP count.
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