Israeli troops with tanks attacked a Palestinian militant stronghold in the Gaza Strip today and killed a gunman and a woman.
Hospital officials said the militant killed in Gaza City's Zeitoun district was a senior member of the governing Hamas faction. Witnesses said his brother was detained by troops.
A Palestinian woman (70) was shot dead in the Zeitoun clashes, hospital officials said.
Israeli forces also entered the nearby refugee camp of Jabalya as well as Beit Lahiya, a northern Gaza town frequently used by militants to launch cross-border rocket salvoes.
Israel has intensified its raids in Gaza since militants captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid in June.
Israeli forces have killed more than 370 Palestinians in Gaza, about half of them civilians, since it began the offensive, Palestinian medical officials and residents say.
Three Israeli soldiers have been killed and a woman in an Israeli border town died in a Palestinian rocket strike.
Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said yesterday Israel would press its fight against Palestinian militants firing rockets against the Jewish state but had no intention of reoccupying Gaza, which it quit last year.
Palestinian gunmen have stepped up rocket fire since Israel killed 19 civilians, including women and children, in a November 8th artillery shelling of the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
Israel apologised for the shelling, which it blamed on a technical failure, but said it was in response to the Palestinian rocket fire.
Yesterday, an Israeli missile struck a car in Gaza City, killing both its occupants. Hamas identified the two men as local commanders of the Islamist movement. Four people, including two children, were wounded.