Israeli missile strike kills two in south Gaza

GAZA, Aug 16 (Reuters) An Israeli aircraft fired a missile into a house in the southern Gaza Strip early today, killing a Palestinian militant and his father, witnesses and medics said.

The Israeli army said it had targeted a weapons storage facility and warned everyone inside to leave before the attack.

The air strike destroyed a two-storey house in Khan Younis, near Gaza's border with Egypt.

Residents identified the dead as a militant from al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and his father, whom they said was not a member of the group.

At least 10 people were wounded, some in the house and others from neighbouring homes damaged by the explosion, medics said.

In the northern Gaza Strip, Israel forces searched for tunnels and what an army spokesman described as other threats near the Israeli-built border fence.

Residents of the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun said Israeli bulldozers protected by tanks uprooted orchards and greenery and soldiers detained six people. Militants use northern Gaza as a launching ground for rocket attacks on southern Israel.

Yesterday, Israeli soldiers opened fire on two Palestinian gunmen, thwarting their bid to enter Israel from southern Gaza, an Israeli army spokesman said. The spokesman said troops had shot the gunmen, but he did not know their condition.

Violence in Gaza had persisted during a month-long Israeli war with Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon where a ceasefire took effect on Monday.

Israel launched an offensive in Gaza, its first large-scale ground operation there since quitting the coastal territory last year, after gunmen abducted a soldier on June 25 in a cross-border raid.

The army's campaign has also been aimed at stopping militants firing rockets across the border.

REUTERS SKU RN1304