GAZA CITY, Oct 13: Three Hamas militants were killed on Friday in an Israeli air strike as the army pressed on with a deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip amid deadlocked efforts on forming a Palestinian unity government.

The deaths brought to 13 the number of Palestinians killed by the military in Gaza since the army launched its latest ground incursion early on Thursday, concentrated in the southern part of the territory.

The three militants loyal to ruling Islamist movement Hamas — including a local leader in the military wing — were killed in an air strike on their vehicle in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, a local medic and witnesses said.

The Israeli military confirmed an attack on a vehicle it claimed was transporting weapons. Medics said another five Palestinians were wounded.

Hamas’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades was one of three groups to claim the June 25 seizing of an Israeli soldier that sparked a wider four-month offensive in the Gaza Strip where around 250 Palestinians have died since then.

On Friday, a 29-year-old woman was shot dead by Israeli soldiers operating in the south and another Palestinian died overnight from wounds suffered during an air strike against the house of a Hamas militant.

The army has said its latest operation was targeting “tunnels and other terror threats”.

A spokesman said troops had killed one of two gunmen in southern Gaza, but when questioned about the death of a woman, he said only that the army had “heard such claims” and was “checking”.

Israel’s prolonged operations in Gaza have the stated goals of retrieving captured Corporal Gilad Shalit and stopping alleged militant rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

Since the offensive began on June 28, around 250 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have died in the Gaza Strip, according to an AFP count.—AFP