Air strike kills Gaza militants

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/7731956.stm

Version 0 of 1.

An Israeli air strike has killed four Palestinian militants in the northern Gaza Strip, officials have said.

The Israeli military said the strike, east of Gaza City, had targeted gunmen preparing to fire rockets at Israel.

It came as the Israeli cabinet met on Sunday to discuss the fragile five-month-old ceasefire and whether to lift a blockade on the territory.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the truce was under pressure, for which he blamed Palestinian militants.

According to a statement from his office, Mr Olmert also ordered Israel's security forces to draw up action plans to restore calm and give options for ending Hamas's control of Gaza.

"The responsibility for breaking the calm and the creation of a situation of prolonged and repeated violence in the south of the country is entirely on Hamas and the other terror groups in Gaza," Mr Olmert said.

The Hamas-led administration, in turn, accuses Israel of jeopardising and violating the ceasefire.

Aid agencies say Gaza faces a humanitarian crisis if Israel's blockade continues.

'Firing mortars'

A spokesman for a small militant group known as the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) said that the four were firing mortars into Israel when they were killed.

The Israeli military said Palestinians had launched two rockets earlier in the day into Israel, but no-one was hurt.

Rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip have led to Israel imposing a blockade on the region.

At least 16 Gaza militants have been killed in skirmishes along the border in the past week.

Scores of rockets, missiles and mortars have been fired from Gaza across the border, prompting a week-long tightening of Israel's blockade of the territory.

On Friday, the UK-based aid agency, Oxfam, warned of catastrophe in Gaza and neighbouring areas of Israel if the truce was not maintained.

It called on world leaders to do everything they could to break Israel's blockade of Gaza and urged Israel to resume supplies without delay.

Oxfam said both sides would suffer if fighting continued.