Israel widens Gaza offensive, kills 4

GAZA, July 16 (Reuters) Israel today widened its offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing a Palestinian civilian in southern Gaza and three militants in the north, while also pursuing a second front against Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas.

The Gaza operation, aimed at recovering a captured soldier and stopping armed groups from firing makeshift rockets, has piled pressure on the Palestinian government led by Hamas, which demands a prisoner swap for the Israeli corporal.

Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers, backed by helicopters firing machine guns, moved in darkness into farmland near the town of Beit Hanoun, an area militants have often used to fire rockets.

Militants blew up hidden bombs and fired anti-tank grenades.

Three gunmen were killed in an Israeli air strike. At least 10 other Palestinians were wounded in that and other air attacks. The army said it had also opened fire on a group of men spotted carrying an anti-tank grenade launcher.

In southern Gaza, parts of which Israeli forces raided after the abduction, the army killed a Palestinian woman in her home, medics said. Palestinian witnesses said an Israeli tank shell landed near her house, sending shrapnel flying inside.

The army had no immediate comment. Palestinian medics confirmed the woman's death.

HAMAS OFFICE TARGETED The air force also targeted a Hamas office in the Islamist stronghold of Jabalya.

''We're operating against terrorist infrastructure and to stop the firing of rockets,'' said one military source.

Israeli troops had pulled out of the northern Gaza Strip a week earlier after a major raid into the territory, which Israel abandoned in 2005 after a 38-year occupation.

Israel killed two Palestinians and attacked the economy ministry on Saturday, striking at the Hamas administration.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for the fate of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was captured in a raid from Gaza on June 25.

Israel has said it will not discuss a prisoner exchange.

The Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed more than 85 people, about half of them militants.

At the same time, Israel has been waging an offensive aimed at crippling Hizbollah after the group captured two soldiers in an attack on Israel, killed eight others and rained rockets on the northern part of Israel.

At least 104 people, all but four of them civilians, have been killed in the mounting Israeli assault on Lebanon.

Reuters SY VP1152