GAZA CITY (AFP) — Israeli strikes killed four Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip and militants fired rockets at communities inside the Jewish state on Sunday in defiance of the latest Middle East peace push.
The Palestinian presidency condemned the killings and accused Israel of endangering talks at a time when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was pressing diplomacy in Jerusalem ahead of an international peace meeting.
Three of the Palestinians -- civilian workers -- were killed when an Israeli shell exploded near the place where they changed clothes for their factory job, local medical officials said.
The dead were named as 40-year-old Zaher al-Har, his son Yussef, 18, and 22-year-old Mohammed Abu Habib.
An Israeli air strike killed Bassem Khadura, 25, from the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, and critically wounded another militant from the radical faction in the same area, medical officials and witnesses said.
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed two air strikes and ground shelling against the northern Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks.
Militants launched eight rockets towards Israel on Sunday, two of which fell on the depressed town of Sderot and four in a community in the western Negev desert, the army said. There were no casualties or damage.
Palestinian medical officials reported a third Israeli air strike elsewhere in the northern Gaza Strip, east of the town of Beit Hanun, in which one Palestinian was wounded, but the army said it was unaware of the incident.
"This reprehensible crime reveals the real position of Israel's occupational government, which uses the language of force and commits more killings and assassinations," said Palestinian presidency spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina.
Rice was in Jerusalem on Sunday on her eighth visit this year for a fresh round of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to try to bridge gaps ahead of an international conference expected in Annapolis, Maryland later this year.
Rudeina demanded that Rice work to "stop the assassinations, the blockade, and the collective punishment forced on our people, to rescue the Annapolis conference from drowning in a cycle of violence and aggression."
Sunday's deaths bring the number of people killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in 2000 to 5,921, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP tally.
Palestinian militants fire rockets and mortars from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel on an almost daily basis, rarely causing casualties but leaving local Israelis in a constant state of anxiety.
Since the Islamist Hamas movement routed forces loyal to Abbas in a bloody June takeover, militants have fired more than 1,000 rockets and mortars at Israel, according to the army.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak warned last week that every day brought closer the prospect of a full-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip, where more limited raids have been unable to halt the rocket fire.
Israel's attorney general has suspended a government decision to reduce badly needed electricity supplies to the impoverished Palestinian territory in a bid to put pressure on militants.
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