Israeli air strikes, commandos kill 4 Palestinians

GAZA, Sep 6 (Reuters) Israeli forces killed four Palestinians, at least one of them a militant, during separate operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank today, witnesses said.

They said two Israeli air strikes around the Gaza town of Khan Younis killed two men, while another died in a separate incident nearby. Two of the dead were civilians, the Palestinian witnesses said. Medics did not immediately identify the third.

The Israeli army said the strikes targeted combatants -- a group of gunmen, and another Palestinian suspected of planting explosives.

Palestinian witnesses said one of the air strikes wounded three gunmen from the governing Islamic faction Hamas.

In the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, witnesses and military officials said undercover Israeli commandos killed a member of the militant group Islamic Jihad when he tried to evade arrest.

Israel has been pressing an offensive in the Gaza Strip since the abduction of a soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 25 by a group of militants, including members of the governing Islamic faction Hamas.

Today's deaths came hours after four militants, believed to be members of Hamas, were killed in two Israeli air strikes in the town of Rafah, also in the southern Gaza strip, overnight.

A further 20 people were wounded in those strikes.

Israel says its Gaza offensive is also designed to put a stop to the firing of makeshift rockets by militant groups into towns near the border.

During the offensive, at least 209 Palestinians have been killed, about half of them civilians.

Israel pulled its troops and more than 8,000 settlers out of Gaza in August last year after 38 years of occupation in a move that many hoped at the time would lead to a breakthrough for relations between Israel and the Palestinians.

REUTERS DH PM0040