Four hurt as Israel attacks Gaza militants

GAZA, Aug 4 (Reuters) Israel today launched a series of air strikes in the Gaza Strip targeting militants, and wounding at least four people, witnesses and medics said.

The latest strike wounded two people in the southern town of Rafah, medics said, where troops killed a total of five gunmen and three civilians in a day-long raid the army said was aimed at preventing rocket fire at southern Israel.

Israel wounded at least one Palestinian in an air strike late yesterday in the same area, hours after five Palestinian gunmen and three civilians were killed there.

An Israeli army statement said ground forces had targeted the area, on the outskirts of the city of Rafah, also to destroy what it called ''terrorist infrastructure.'' The site of the Israeli campaign is near where militants seized an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid on June 25.

Troops backed by armoured vehicles carried out house-to-house searches in Rafah yesterday.

At least 162 Palestinians have been killed in an offensive launched by Israel since then to recover the soldier and end cross-border rocket fire. More than half the dead are civilians.

Israel's offensive has increased pressure on Hamas, which rose to power in March, and had been under a Western aid embargo to try to force it to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept peace deals.

Israel has rejected demands by the armed wing of Hamas and the other groups that captured Corporal Gilad Shalit to exchange him for Palestinian prisoners.

Two air raids elsewhere in Gaza today destroyed a building used by Hamas and targeted another used by Islamic Jihad, another militant group that calls for Israel's destruction and has been involved in suicide bomb attacks and rocket launches at Israel.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said these air strikes had targeted weapons depots of both groups.

Medics said two passersby were wounded in one of the Israeli attacks, after those inside the building were given 20 minutes warning to leave.

REUTERS VJ RK0600