Israeli strikes kill 6 Palestinians, wound 45

GAZA, Nov 1 (Reuters) Israel killed six Palestinians including five militants and wounded 45 people in a series of air strikes and gun battles in the northern Gaza Strip today, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

The raid was one of the biggest since Israel launched an offensive in Gaza to press for the release of a soldier captured by Palestinian gunmen on June 25 in a cross-border attack and to halt militant rocket fire into the Jewish state.

The armed wing of the ruling Hamas Islamist movement said its gunmen killed an Israeli soldier and wounded others when they attacked Israeli vehicles with anti-tank rockets. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

Israeli soldiers backed by armoured vehicles entered northern Gaza before dawn and gun battles quickly erupted, followed by air strikes and tank shelling, witnesses said.

Hamas said the operation would have a ''negative influence'' on negotiations being brokered by Egypt to try to arrange an exchange of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel for the release of the Israeli soldier seized in June, Corporal Gilad Shalit.

A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo yesterday for talks with Egyptian officials.

''The release of the Israeli soldier will only come after the enemy fulfils the conditions set by the captors,'' said Ismail Rudwan, a Hamas spokesman, referring to demands to free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet met to debate a further widening of the Gaza offensive.

Apart from the operation in northern Gaza, dozens of armoured vehicles massed at Israel's border with southern Gaza late yesterday, witnesses said.

''The intention is to hit the rocket launch sites and terror infrastructure but not to use it as a means of reoccupying Gaza,'' deputy defence minister Ephraim Sneh told Israel Radio.

Israel withdrew its army and Jewish settlers from Gaza last year after a 38-year occupation, but tension has risen on the border since Hamas took power after winning January elections. The movement formally seeks to destroy Israel.

FIERCE CLASHES Air strikes around the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun killed a Palestinian policeman and two gunmen, including one from Hamas, Palestinian security sources said. Three other Hamas gunmen were killed by tank fire and in clashes, witnesses said.

At least two dozen people were wounded in clashes, including gunmen and civilians, hospital officials said. Others were wounded in the air strikes, they said.

The Israeli military said there was ''ground action'' in northern Gaza, adding there had been three air strikes targeting gunmen either approaching troops or planting bombs.

''The operation is directed against rocket launching infrastructure,'' a military spokesman said.

Nearly 280 Palestinians have been killed in the four-month-old Israeli offensive, about half of them civilians. Two Israeli soldiers had been killed before today's clashes.

In southern Gaza, the Israeli military jammed the frequencies of local radio stations to broadcast a message urging residents to evacuate an area of Rafah, listeners said.

Israeli military officials have accused militants of smuggling arms from neighbouring Egypt into the strip. Political sources have said operations might target an area known as the Philadelphi Corridor, which separates Gaza and Egypt.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said yesterday his group was in indirect negotiations with Israel through a UN-sponsored mediator over an exchange of prisoners for two Israeli soldiers seized by Hezbollah guerrillas in July.

Israel launched a 34-day war against Hezbollah in response to the abduction. An Israeli government spokeswoman said she had no comment.

REUTERS SP VV1548