GAZA CITY, March 2: Three Palestinians, including a nine-year-old boy, were killed by the Israeli army on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, and a woman died from injuries she sustained when Israeli troops demolished her home in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah last October, Palestinian medics said.

Israeli tanks thrust into the southern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Khan Yunis overnight after a large bomb flipped an Israeli personnel carrier against a wall, injuring two soldiers, an army spokesman said.

The incursion met fierce resistance, sparking gunbattles which killed two Palestinians and wounded 40, Palestinian medical sources said.

The Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the hardline Islamic group Hamas, claimed responsibility for the blast and several other overnight attacks in the Khan Yunis area.

Palestinian security sources said Israeli troops blew up an eight-storey building which the army charged was used by snipers.

They said the 54 residents had received very short notice to evacuate the building and that the troops had used four of them as human shields as they were planting the explosives.—AFP