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Israel launches deadly Gaza raids | |
(about 4 hours later) | |
Israeli forces have killed at least five armed members of the Palestinian movement Hamas, as well as another gunman and a teacher, in raids in Gaza. | |
Witnesses said Israeli troops backed by tanks and aircraft launched an incursion near Jabaliya sparking clashes with gunmen. | |
The teacher, 38, was killed when a surface-to-surface missile hit a school in Beit Hanoun in a separate raid. | |
There are no reports of Israeli casualties in the engagements. | |
Israel has stepped up military action against Hamas since it claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide bombing in Dimona - its first in Israel since 2004. | |
Hamas said an armed member of Islamic Jihad was killed along with its five members in fighting with the Israeli troops. | |
Three pupils, all aged 16, were also wounded when the Israeli missile hit the school, hospital and education ministry officials said. | |
"What was the fault of a teacher, an emissary on a sacred mission?" the ministry said in a statement. | |
An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops had not targeted the school but had fired on a Palestinian rocket crew. | |
The army is checking whether the building was hit by a stray missile, she said. | |
Hamas says it has fired 40 rockets and 60 mortars at southern Israel since the new upsurge in fighting began with a deadly Israeli airstrike on Tuesday afternoon which killed seven Hamas security force members. | |
Correspondents say the violence threatens to overwhelm renewed peacemaking efforts spearheaded by the leader of Hamas's factional rival Fatah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. | |
Hamas, does not recognise Israel and opposes the peace process. It ousted Mr Abbas's forces from Gaza in June, but he remains in control of Palestinian-administered parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. |
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