Israeli air strike targets van in Gaza, 1 dead

GAZA, Nov 4 (Reuters) The Israeli military targeted a van carrying Hamas militants in an air strike in Gaza today, killing one person and wounding two others, doctors and Palestinian security sources said.

The attack came on the fourth day of an Israeli offensive in which around 30 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, have been killed, including 17 yesterday, one of the bloodiest days since Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

The Israeli military said it was checking the report.

Hamas, an Islamist militant group that heads the Palestinian government, confirmed those hit were members of its armed wing involved in making rockets to be fired at the Jewish state.

The latest Israeli operation is part of a broader offensive launched in late June, following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by militants in a cross-border raid from Gaza.

Yesterday, Israeli troops shot dead two women acting as human shields between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen hiding in a mosque in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

More than 50 veiled women, answering an appeal broadcast on local radio, worked their way between Israeli forces and the mosque, eventually allowing around 60 gunmen, who had been holed up inside for more than 15 hours, to escape.

The killing of the two unarmed women, captured by television cameras and broadcast around the world, provoked an angry response from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who demanded immediate United Nations intervention in the conflict.

The Israeli army said it had fired at armed Palestinians and was investigating whether it had also shot the women.

Israel says its latest offensive is designed to stop militants firing makeshift rockets into Israel.

Around 300 of the homemade missiles them have been fired since the beginning of the year, Israel says, They mostly cause minor injuries or panic.

The stepped-up violence has all but put paid to hopes for any resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, already a remote prospect since Hamas came to power in March following elections.

Hamas is officially sworn to Israel's destruction.

Since the start of the offensive four months ago nearly 300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, about half of them civilians.

Three Israeli soldiers have been killed.

REUTERS DKA RAI1036