Israeli forces kill three Palestinians in Gaza

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed a Palestinian militant and two civilians in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, witnesses and medical workers said.

They said an Israeli missile landed near a residential building in the border town of Beit Hanoun, killing a man and a woman, both of them civilians. Five other people were wounded.

Beit Hanoun is regularly used by Palestinian militants to launch rockets into the Jewish state. The missile strike came shortly after a fresh rocket salvo by the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) faction hit the Israeli border town of Sderot.

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed there had been an attack in the Beit Hanoun area, saying it targeted a group of militants that had launched at least three rockets. One of the rockets wounded an Israeli in Sderot, the spokeswoman said.

She described the Beit Hanoun attack as the work of Israeli ground forces. Palestinian witnesses said it was an air strike.

Earlier, an official from the Islamic Jihad militant group said several of its members were hit by an Israeli missile after they fired four makeshift rockets into southern Israel. Another militant, from the PRC, was killed, the militant group said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops attacked a group of militants that had launched mortar bombs.

The violence came as U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in the region to promote talks between Israeli and Palestinians, aimed at reaching a peace agreement before he leaves office in January 2009.

Gaza is ruled by the Islamist group Hamas, which refuses to give up its fight against the Jewish state.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Caroline Drees)