Three Palestinians, including two children, were killed by Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip on Thursday as troops pressed on with a massive nine-day-old incursion, Palestinian medics and the Israeli army said.
Palestinian doctors identified the two slain children as Sliman Abu Ful and Raed Abu Zeid, both 14, and said their bodies had been ripped apart by what appeared to be a tank shell.
Israeli military sources insisted the two Palestinians killed in Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip had been "preparing to fire an improvised rocket".
"The pair were hit by a missile fired by a helicopter gunship," one of the sources said.
But witnesses at the scene told AFP that the teenagers had been rummaging through the ruins of a local youth club destroyed by armoured bulldozers two days before.
They said they were hit by a tank shell and that no fire or flash had been seen at the scene.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian gunman was killed by Israeli troops in the southern Gaza Strip, according to an Israeli military source.