Israel kills 6 Palestinians during Gaza clashes

GAZA, Oct 12 (Reuters) Israeli forces killed six Palestinians, at least three of them Hamas militants, in a Gaza raid today, pressing a nearly four-month offensive launched after a soldier was abducted, witnesses and medics said.

Hamas's armed wing responded by firing six make-shift rockets into Israel from the coastal strip. No one was injured. The rockets were the first fired by Hamas militants in over a month but other militant groups have kept up such attacks.

Hamas controls the Palestinian government and has rebuffed international pressure to recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by interim peace deals.

Ahmed Youssef, a top political adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, called for a summit in Egypt between Hamas and the once-dominant Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas over stalled efforts to form a unity government.

The worst internal fighting in a decade has stoked fears of civil war, and Abbas's aides said the president, who advocates a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, might appoint an emergency government or call early elections.

Youssef said dissolving the Hamas-led government could lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and stepped up attacks against the Jewish state.

''Either the Palestinian Authority collapses if the government is dissolved and we return to ... armed resistance, or we pursue the formation of a national unity government,'' Youssef said.

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