Hamas says Israeli strikes kill six gunmen

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip killed five gunmen and a ground raid killed a militant on Tuesday, Palestinian medics said, in the first armed clash in the strip since a cease-fire took hold there in June.

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed the air strike, saying the missile was aimed at militants who had fired mortar bombs at Israeli forces operating in another part of the Gaza Strip. Gaza medics said another militant was killed by a tank shell.

In the earlier raid, Israeli troops killed a gunman when the army moved into Gaza to destroy a tunnel built by militants intending to capture Israeli soldiers.

All the dead were members of the Hamas Islamist group which controls the coastal enclave.

The raid was a rare Israeli military operation since the start of a cease-fire was declared on June 19 and which has largely held between Israel and Hamas.

"Security forces uncovered a tunnel intended for immediate use to abduct Israeli soldiers into the Gaza Strip," a military spokeswoman said.

In June 2006 Gaza gunmen abducted Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, when they infiltrated through a tunnel under the border fence into an Israel army base bordering on the southern Gaza Strip. Shalit is still being held at a secret location.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the raid proved that Israel was not interested in continuing the cease-fire although he stopped short of saying that Hamas would abandon it.