Israeli air strikes kill 2 in Gaza tunnel

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes bombed tunnels beneath the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt Saturday killing two Palestinians, after militants fired several mortars at Israel from the coastal territory, medical workers said.

Medical workers who reached the area hours after the attacks said they had recovered the bodies of two Palestinian men involved in digging the subterranean passages Israel says are used to smuggle weapons into Hamas-ruled Gaza.

The men were the first fatalities in Israeli-Palestinian violence since early March when an Israeli missile killed a Palestinian militant Israel said was preparing to launch a rocket.

An Israeli military spokesman said Saturday's strikes targeted three tunnels used to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip near the town of Rafah, along the Egyptian border.

Israel had resumed aerial attacks Friday on the tunnels after a nearly two-month hiatus in fighting, after a rocket fired from Gaza struck inside Israel.

Israel said three mortars were fired at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip Saturday, causing no casualties. The Palestinian Resistance Committees, a militant group in Gaza, claimed it had fired the mortars Saturday.

Militant rocket fire had dropped significantly since Egypt began efforts to consolidate the January 18 truce that ended Israel's 22-day offensive against Gaza's Islamic militants.

Israel launched its war on the territory controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement in late December, with the aim of halting cross-border rocket and mortar attacks on the Jewish state by armed militant groups.