Israel launches Gaza operation to end rocket attacks
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel Defense Forces troops raided the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza overnight, killing six Palestinians, an IDF spokesman said Friday.
Palestinian security sources said Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the camp Friday morning, but said only two Palestinians had been killed.
In an ensuing firefight, Palestinian militants fired guns and antitank missiles at the soldiers, and also detonated an explosive device near them, IDF said.
Israeli helicopter gunships opened fire on five armed Palestinians as the men approached the troops, an IDF spokesman said Friday, killing them.
Israeli troops also shot and killed a Palestinian militant trying to lay an explosive device near an IDF force in the western outskirts of Khan Yunis.
Israel reported no casualties among its forces.
According to IDF, the operation was designed to reduce the number of mortar shells and rockets fired at Israeli settlements in Gaza by destroying buildings used for storing mortar shells and for cover by Palestinian militants.
However, a Qassam rocket fired from Gaza landed in southern Israel Friday morning, hitting an open field near Kibbutz Nir-Am.
IDF said more than 30 mortar shells were fired on Gush Katif over the last week, killing a Thai worker and injuring six Israelis.
Meanwhile, Palestinian officials Friday asked Israel for permission to dig along Gaza's border with Egypt in an attempt to rescue six Palestinians trapped in a collapsed tunnel, Israeli military sources said.
A military source told CNN he believed the tunnel in Rafah's al-Salam neighborhood was one of the many illegal tunnels dug along the border used for smuggling between Egypt and southern Gaza.
The conditions of those trapped was not immediately known.
