Israeli army kills 8 Palestinians in Gaza fighting

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed four Palestinian militants and four civilians, including an 11-year-old boy, in assaults on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Friday, the Islamist faction and medical officials said.

The operations near the communities of el Bureij and Khan Younis followed a vow by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to answer a deadly Palestinian assault on a Gaza border terminal on Wednesday with a stepped-up military campaign against Hamas.

Troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships moved into el Bureij, in central Gaza, on what an Israeli military spokeswoman described as a mission "to disrupt the terrorist infrastructure and distance terrorists from the border fence".

Palestinian officials said Israeli ground forces killed four civilians, one of them a boy. A helicopter missile strike killed a Hamas gunman and a fighter from the Army of the Nation, an al Qaeda-inspired Gazan faction, the Palestinian officials said.

The military spokeswoman said Israeli forces attacked several gunmen during clashes. Reuters Television footage from el Bureij showed militants in the village's orchards.

Hours earlier, Israeli air strikes killed two Hamas gunmen near Khan Younis, in south Gaza, and wounded seven others.

Israel regularly mounts raids on Gaza, where Hamas took over last June after a civil war with forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in what it calls a bid to stop cross-border rocket salvoes.

In parallel, Israel has intensified an economic blockade on Gaza, most of whose 1.5 million Palestinians are aid-dependent.