Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon has vowed to keep striking Israel's enemies after Palestinian militants blew up a military vehicle during a raid in Gaza.
"Today we received a painful reminder of the heavy price we are paying in the struggle to defend our country and the security of our citizens," he said in a speech to parliament.
Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon
"We are fighting a cruel, inhuman enemy and we won't stop fighting it and hurting it no matter where it hides."
He was speaking after Palestinian militants killed six Israeli soldiers in Gaza this morning in the deadliest ambush of Israeli forces in occupied territories in 18 months. The militants blew the vehicle up during the raid in which troops shot dead five Palestinians.
The soldiers, who were in a troop carrier loaded with explosives that had been used to demolish weapons workshops ran over a powerful, improvised mine and was "blown to pieces", a senior military official said.
Violence has escalated since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's right-wing party voted on May 2nd against his plan to pull out of Gaza, where 7,500 Jews live in settlements amid 1.2 million Palestinians on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
The ambush is likely to drive a deeper wedge between Israeli hardliners who say a Gaza withdrawal would be a "reward for Palestinian terror" and a majority of Israelis who see the fenced-in strip as a costly liability that should be abandoned.
The bomb exploded in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City at dawn.
Al-Arabiya TV reported that Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad group, and Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas group, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
In the Gaza Strip, Hamas issued a claim of responsibility, saying it had filmed Israelis evacuating their dead and wounded soldiers from the scene.
AP