Israel Kills 5 Gunmen in W.Bank and South Israel

Five killed in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank and in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip.

Israeli troops killed five Palestinian gunmen on Saturday in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank and in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip.

Two Gaza gunmen were killed after they infiltrated Israeli territory and tried to raid the Erez border terminal, which houses the Israeli District Coordination Office, which manages Israel's activities in Gaza, an army spokeswoman said.

Earlier, Israeli troops killed three other gunmen in the West Bank City of Jenin, including the local leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

After the incident near Gaza, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees Gaza militant group said that one of its gunmen and another belonging to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine had been killed in a "martyrdom operation against the Zionist entity."

The spokesman said that the operation was intended to enter the Israeli community of Netiv Ha'asara, north of the Gaza frontier fence.

In Jenin, Israeli army and militant sources identified one of the gunmen killed as Ala Abu Srour, the local leader of Islamic Jihad.

An army spokeswoman said the Israeli force later found two assault rifles and ammunition clips in the vehicle used by the gunmen.

Israel says raids against Palestinian militants help to foil attacks against its citizens. Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, where the Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas holds sway, say such operations harm chances for peacemaking.

On Friday, Israeli forces killed a 13-year-old Israeli Arab boy and an Islamic Jihad gunman during a raid in the village of Seida, near the West Bank city of Tulkarm, Palestinian ambulance crews said.

The boy, from a town in southern Israel, had been visiting relatives in the village, the medics said.

The Israeli army said the gunman and one other person, whom it did not identify, were killed in exchanges of fire during the operation in Seida.

Israel recently stopped pursuing its list of 178 wanted Fatah fighters in the occupied West Bank in a bid to boost Abbas after the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.

But it has carried on targeting Islamic Jihad, a group that has mounted numerous attacks against Israelis since the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000 and opposes Abbas's efforts to revive peacemaking with Israel.

Israeli soldiers crossed into the Gaza Strip on Friday and killed two Palestinian gunmen who had opened fire at them near the border fence, the army said.