The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Gaza City

An Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip killed six Palestinian militants early Wednesday, medics said, including three from the Hamas movement that has ruled Gaza since June.

The overnight helicopter strike near the border fence with Israel wounded another 11 people, Palestinian medics said.

Earlier reports indicated that the fighters were all members of the armed wing of Hamas, but in a statement released Wednesday the Islamist movement said only three of the fighters came from its own ranks.

Another two militants came from the Popular Resistance Committees, and the sixth was a member of the armed wing of the radical Islamic Jihad movement.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said there was an operation in the northern Gaza Strip during which Israeli troops returned fire after coming under attack from small arms and anti-tank rockets and before calling in aircraft.

The latest deaths bring to 6,020 the number of people killed since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP tally.

On Tuesday Israeli shelling on central Gaza killed one member of Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June last year after violently ousting security forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Another report adds: Israel's network of roadblocks will remain in place across the West Bank, the defense minister said Tuesday, sparking an outcry from Palestinians who say they cannot rebuild their economy until people and goods move freely.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak's comments soured an already tense atmosphere between Israel and the Palestinians just days before President Bush's first visit to the region as U.S. president. Israeli construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and violence between Israelis and Palestinians - and among Palestinians themselves - threaten to overwhelm Bush's peace efforts.

In a newspaper interview ahead of the visit, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said for their own good, Israelis must consider giving up much of the West Bank and part of Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

Jan. 1 is the day Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement celebrates its anniversary, but in Gaza, Hamas rulers banned fireworks and marches - setting off clashes that killed eight people and wounded more than 60. It was the worst outbreak of infighting since Nov. 11, when Hamas forces opened fire at a huge Fatah rally, killing eight.

The eight dead Tuesday included three Hamas and three Fatah supporters, officials said. Also killed were an elderly man caught in a crossfire in northern Gaza and a 14-year-old Hamas supporter shot in the southern town of Khan Younis after he left a mosque, relatives said.

By nightfall Tuesday, the internal fighting had died down. But before dawn Wednesday, an Israeli operation in central Gaza strip killed six militants, Hamas and Palestinian medical officials said. At least three of those killed were Hamas militants, Hamas said. The group had earlier announced that four of its members were killed. Five gunmen were wounded, the group said.

The Israeli army confirmed that troops had operated for a few hours in the area near Gaza City and that they had fired, together with Israeli aircraft, at gunmen who shot anti-tank missiles toward the soldiers.