Dozens of rockets and mortar rounds were fired at Israel on Wednesday after Israeli forces killed six militants in the Gaza Strip, in the most serious incidents since a truce went into effect in June. The Islamist Hamas movement that rules the Palestinian territory said its armed wing fired at Israel in retaliation for Tuesday night's military attacks.
A total of 53 rockets and mortar rounds were fired at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the Israeli army said. The two sides accused each other of violating the truce that went into effect on June 19 following months of deadly violence in and around the besieged coastal enclave.
Hamas said six members of its Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades were killed by the Israeli forces. Israel said its troops went into Gaza on Tuesday night, acting on intelligence pinpointing a tunnel 250 metres (yards) from the border, which it claimed was to be used for the abduction of Israeli soldiers.
"A unit of paratroopers, backed by sappers and the airforce intervened," a military spokesman said, adding that "armed terrorists opened fire at the troops from a structure above the tunnel. "The forces returned fire and identified positively hitting a number of them," he said.
A Hamas fighter was killed and three other militants were wounded in the shootout according to Palestinian medics, while the Israeli army said four Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded. Five Palestinians were later killed in Israeli air raids near the towns of Dir al-Balah and Al-Bureij, which the army said targeted armed groups firing mortars.
"There is no intention to disrupt the cease-fire, rather the purpose of the operation was to remove an immediate and dangerous threat posed by the Hamas terror organisation," the army said.
It said the tunnel was a serious violation of the truce by Hamas, the Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza since it ousted forces loyal to secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June 2007. The armed wing of Hamas, for its part, called the Israeli attack "a serious violation of the truce agreements." "We warn the Zionist enemy that our response will be ruthless if it persists with its aggression," it said.
At least 545 people - nearly all of them Palestinians - have been killed since Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were revived at an international conference in Annapolis, near Washington, in November 2007, according to an AFP tally. There had been several incidents of isolated mortar and rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip since the truce went into effect in June.
Israel has responded to those attacks by temporarily closing its crossings with Gaza through which badly-needed foodstuff and supplies are imported into the impoverished territory. Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade imposed after Hamas seized power in the territory of 1.5 million people.
Israel claims the blockade aims at forcing militants to halt their attacks on the Jewish state. Israel officially refuses to meet directly with Hamas, which rejects the Jewish state's right to exist, but has been holding indirect talks with Egypt acting as a go-between.
Egypt had played a key role in bringing about a truce and is now involved in efforts to achieve a prisoner swap. Hamas wants Israel to release about 1,400 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit who was abducted by Gaza militants in a deadly cross-border raid in June 2006.
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