GAZA CITY, Nov 1: An Israeli raid to destroy a Gaza tunnel ignited clashes in which four Hamas commanders were killed and five Israeli soldiers wounded, both sides said on Friday.

In one of the deadliest fighting in Gaza since an October 2012 conflict, warplanes carried out an air strike after Palestinian militants lobbed between one and three mortar shells into southern Israel.

Neither attack caused any further casualties.

Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas are under increased pressure from both Israel and Egypt, which has destroyed hundreds of similar tunnels in the south of the besieged Palestinian enclave used to bring in fuel and other goods.

The closures by Egypt forced authorities to shut down Gaza’s sole electricity plant early on Friday, causing widespread power outages, Hamas said.

The Israeli military said the fighting erupted on Thursday night when an explosive device went off as troops were clearing a tunnel from Gaza into Israel, allegedly to be used as a springboard for militant attacks.

Five soldiers were wounded, the army said.

In response, “the soldiers opened fire and directly hit a terrorist,” and Israeli warplanes struck “an additional terror tunnel located in the southern Gaza Strip”, it said.

Palestinian officials said four local commanders of Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, were killed by tank fire.

Rabieh Barikeh was killed instantly and Khaled Abu Bakr died of his wounds overnight, according to the officials, who said the commanders were carrying out surveillance along the frontier east of the town of Khan Yunis when they came under fire.

The bodies of Mohammed al-Qassas and Mohammed Daoud were discovered later.

At Barikeh’s funeral on Friday, some 2,000 Hamas supporters holding up the movement’s flag shouted “revenge against Israel”.

During the exchange, Hamas TV said, three mortar shells were fired from Gaza into southern Israel. The Israeli army reported only one, which it said struck an open field.

“Any Israeli incursion on our land, will not pass without paying the price, and Gaza will be as always a graveyard for the invaders,” the Qassam Brigades warned in a tweet on Friday afternoon.

They also said they had uncovered “part of a spy system used by Israel against resistance in Gaza”, but gave no details.

Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said the mission to clear the tunnel, discovered last month, “was imperative due to the potential to utilise the terror tunnel for future attacks against Israeli civilians”.

Last month, the Qassam Brigades said it had dug the tunnel as part of a plan to capture Israeli soldiers and hold them in exchange for imprisoned Palestinians.

The clashes came just days after Israeli warplanes raided northern Gaza in response to rockets being fired into southern Israel by unidentified militants.

Power plant Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, enjoyed relative freedom of movement for the year now-ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was in power.

The enclave has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since the Hamas takeover.

But since July, Egypt’s new authorities started turning the screws again, repeatedly closing the Rafah border crossing and destroying hundreds of cross-border tunnels.

On Friday morning, Gaza’s sole power plant was shut down because fuel had run out, which the energy authority blamed on the destruction of the tunnels.—AFP