GAZA CITY (AFP) — An Israeli air strike killed three members of the same family, including a teenager, in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in what the army called an error, one day after the deadliest day of violence in the territory for more than a year.
The victims -- a 13-year-old boy, his father and uncle -- were killed when a missile hit their car in Gaza City, medics said.
The military said it had killed civilians "in error" while targeting militants.
"The Israeli army has recognised that during an operation against terrorists in the Gaza Strip a vehicle that was close to the target was hit in error," a spokeswoman said. "An investigation has been opened."
Israeli-Palestinian fighting has escalated since the two sides revived peace talks in November, overshadowing US President George W. Bush's prediction of a deal by the time he leaves office in January 2009.
Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal told reporters in Damascus on Wednesday that the Gaza "massacre" confirmed the futility of negotiating with Israel.
"This shedding of Palestinian blood will shorten the existence of Israel and will destroy it," Meshaal said. "No peace with the killers and no security for the criminals."
Meshaal charged that the eight-day Middle East tour by the US president that ended on Wednesday "gave cover to this massacre," and he called on Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to halt the "absurd" peace talks.
"Every day you are humiliated (by the Israelis) and you emerge (from talks) empty-handed," he said.
Wednesday's Gaza strike followed the killing of a top commander from the radical Islamic Jihad in the occupied West Bank and the deaths of 19 Palestinians in Israeli raids on Gaza on Tuesday.
Among those people killed on Tuesday was Hossam Zahar, the son of Hamas's former foreign minister Mahmud Zahar, who vowed "to answer Israel in the only language that it knows."
Abbas telephoned Mahmud Zahar on Wednesday to express his condolences on the death of his son, the first direct contact with a senior Hamas official since the Islamist group seized Gaza in June, a Hamas official said.
Another three people were seriously wounded in Wednesday's Gaza City strike, and four Palestinians were wounded in two Israeli raids in the north of the impoverished territory, medics said.
Palestinian militants responded with a barrage of some 30 homemade rockets and mortar shells at southern Israel, without causing any casualties.
And on Wednesday evening, an Israeli air strike on a car near the central Gaza Strip refugee camp of Al-Bureij killed two Palestinians and wounded three others, medical sources said without stating whether the victims were militants.
An army spokeswoman confirmed that a car carrying weapons had been targeted.
Meanwhile, in an early morning gunbattle near the town of Jenin in the northern West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead 40-year-old Walid Obeidi after surrounding his house in the village of Qabatiya, security officials said.
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that troops had killed Obeidi -- considered the West Bank chief of Islamic Jihad's armed wing -- and said a second militant was arrested.
Many shops stayed shut in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after a call by Hamas for three days of mourning and a day-long general strike.
Israel carries out raids almost every day in Gaza in a bid to curb near daily rocket and mortar fire into Israel.
Israelis and Palestinians began peace talks on Monday on the core issues of their conflict -- Jerusalem, settlements, borders, and refugees -- with the hope of reaching an agreement by the end of the year as predicted by Bush during a visit last week.
On Wednesday, Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa harshly condemned the latest Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip, telling reporters it "raises question marks over the future of efforts to advance Arab-Israeli peace."
Since November more than 120 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed by Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip alone, according to an AFP count.
Amid the violence, Israel's ultra-nationalist Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced he would withdraw his Yisrael Beitenu party from the government in protest at core issues being discussed in the peace talks.
"Everyone knows that this process will lead nowhere," Lieberman said.
The departure of Yisrael Beitenu's 11 MPs still leaves Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's coalition government with 67 seats in the 120-member parliament.
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