GAZA CITY, Feb 23: An Israeli missile strike in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun killed three Palestinians near the border fence with Israel on Saturday, a Palestinian hospital official said.

Israel confirmed the attack amid confused reports on the identities of the three men.

Doctor Muawiya Hassanein, the director of Gaza emergency medical services, initially said the men were militants because of the location of the strike.

But he later identified them as Mohammed al-Zaanin, Ibrahim Abu Jarad, and Mohammed Hassanein, employees at the Bank of Jordan, who were picnicking near the border with Israel when the missile struck.

“They were in an area near the border and they were having lunch outside.

They were not militants, but civilians,” Hassanein told AFP.

An Israeli army spokesman said the men were “killed by a land-to-land missile while they were on their way to fire mortars” but could not confirm that the men were carrying weapons.

Israel has carried out near-daily assaults against the Hamas-ruled territory in recent months in a bid to halt rocket and mortar attacks by militants on southern Israel.

At least 193 people have been killed, most of them Gaza militants, since Israel and the Palestinians formally resumed peace talks in November.

Since the latest Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000, at least 6,154 people have been killed, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP tally.—AFP