Israeli air strike kills militant in Gaza

An Israeli air strike killed one Hamas militant and wounded five others in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, the Islamist group and medical staff said.

The attack, confirmed by the Israeli army, brings to six the number of Hamas gunmen killed in Israeli air strikes since militants from the group drove bomb-laden vehicles into an Israeli border crossing on Saturday.

Also yesterday two Palestinian teenagers died of wounds sustained in an apparent Israeli attack that killed Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana in the Gaza Strip last week, raising the total death toll in that incident to six, hospital staff said.

Almost 20 Palestinians, many of them civilians, were killed in last Wednesday's attack in intense violence in the Hamas-controlled enclave, after militants killed three Israeli soldiers earlier that day.

Israel, which pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, regularly launches raids which it says are aimed at militants responsible for cross-border rocket fire that has traumatised southern Israeli towns.

Three Hamas militants were killed and 13 Israeli soldiers wounded in Saturday's bombing attack at Kerem Shalom in the southern Gaza Strip, the third major Palestinian assault on border crossing points in less than two weeks.

Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, and opposes his US-brokered peace negotiations with Israel. The Jewish state has tightened its cordon around Gaza since the takeover.

Former US President Jimmy Carter met Hamas leaders in the region last week and proposed the group stop firing rockets while he pursues efforts with the Jewish state and the West to lift a blockade on the Gaza Strip, politicians familiar with the talks said. Hamas said it was still studying the proposal.

"Our position in general is that... calm should be reciprocal and simultaneous," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said in Gaza.

Mr Carter is due back in Israel last night. Israeli leaders have shunned the Nobel Peace Prize winner and Washington criticised him for his contacts with Hamas, which both the United States and Israel regard as a terrorist group.

Separately, dozens of Palestinian journalists marched through the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank yesterday in protest at Mr Shana's killing. Carrying pictures of Mr Shana, they called for an independent investigation into his death.

Gaza doctors said darts sprayed from a controversial munition used by Israel killed Mr Shana.

Reuters has demanded an urgent inquiry from the Israeli military which has expressed regret but has not yet confirmed that its tank, seen firing in the final seconds of Mr Shana's surviving video, delivered the fatal round or rounds.