Israeli troops press incursion in southern Gaza, 16 killed in three days

At least 16 Palestinians have been killed since early Thursday as Israeli troops pressed ahead an incursion into the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Palestinian medics said on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, an Israeli aircraft fired one missile at a group of militants in an eastern Rafah neighborhood, killing one militant and wounding two others, one of them in critical condition, said the medics.

Shortly before the raid, a Palestinian woman was seriously wounded and her two children were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Rafah.

Earlier in the day, one Palestinian militant was killed in a separate Israeli strike on the key Gaza town, which is bordering Egypt.

The latest deaths have brought to 16 the number of Palestinians killed in the Rafah area since Israel started a major incursion backed by aircraft and bulldozers here on early Thursday.

Among the killed, 11 were Palestinian militants and four were children, according to medics.

The Israeli army said that the incursion in Rafah was aimed to destroy "terrorist infrastructure", accusing Palestinian militants of using tunnels dug in the area to smuggle weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.

Over 160 Palestinians have been killed and more than 700 others wounded since Israel launched a massive air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on June 28, three days after Palestinian militants killed two Israeli soldiers and abducted a third in a cross-border raid.

Israel says that the large-scale military operation is aimed to bring home the captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket attacks.

Source: Xinhua