Three Palestinians were killed in an explosion in the southern Gaza Strip last night, further straining an already shaky Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire.
Palestinian hospital officials said the three men had been killed by some kind of explosion. They said two other people remained in critical condition from the blast, which Palestinian officials and militants blamed on Israel.
"We are talking about three dismembered bodies," one hospital official said.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said the army had no immediate comment on the incident.
Following the death of the three men, dozens of angry Palestinians marched on Palestinian security headquarters in Rafah near the Egyptian border and set at least two buildings on fire, witnesses said.
They said the protesters were angry the Palestinian security forces had not opened fire on the Israeli troops whom they said were responsible for killing the three men.
Members of the security forces fired in the air to disperse the crowd, the witnesses added.
Emotions in Rafah, a familiar flashpoint for Palestinian-Israeli violence, are running high after four residents were killed by Israeli troops on Thursday.
The new deaths brought to six the number of Palestinians killed yesterday, hours after Israeli and Palestinian officials held a new round of US-sponsored security talks in an attempt to bring calm to the region.