GAZA CITY, July 26: Six Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on Thursday, as ground troops raided the southern Gaza Strip and aircraft launched a series of sorties targeting militants.

It was the deadliest day of Israeli-Palestinian violence in three weeks, cutting against recent diplomacy designed to revitalise defunct peace talks and bolster Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas since Hamas seized control of Gaza.

An Islamic Jihad commander and two cohorts from the hardline group were killed when an Israeli aircraft fired two missiles into a car in Gaza City.

Witnesses said the rockets slammed into the vehicle at an intersection in the southern part of the city and that one bystander was wounded by shrapnel.

Islamic Jihad announced the dead as Omar al-Khatib, 39, one of the main commanders of its military wing who escaped assassination in an Israeli raid on Tuesday, and two of his militants, Khalil al-Doiueifi and Ahmed al-Balaawi.

An Israeli military spokesman said the air strike had targeted “members of Islamic Jihad who were involved in terrorist activities against Israel.”

Witnesses and medics later said four Jihad militants were wounded during clashes with Hamas's Executive Force when they tried to recover their dead comrades' weapons from the self-styled police.

But an Islamic Jihad member underplayed the incident, saying only that an Executive Force officer opened fire by mistake and wounded a local leader in the faction, whose condition was not serious.

Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles also pressed an incursion into the southern Gaza Strip, sparking clashes with Palestinian gunmen as bulldozers ripped up farm land in the Rafah area, witnesses said.

Sharif Breissi, 33, from the military wing of Hamas was fatally wounded by tank fire around Rafah, medical sources and witnesses said.

Three Jihad gunmen were wounded in another Israeli air strike was called in during the incursion and at least three Palestinians were arrested.

A third Israeli air raid against the densely populated and impoverished Gaza Strip wounded two Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip targeting launchers used to fire rockets into Israel, medical and army sources said.

“There is activity in the southern Gaza Strip against terror threats.—AFP