A Palestinian mortar shell fired into a Jewish settlement in Gaza on Tuesday killed two farm workers, one Palestinian and the other Chinese, Israeli military sources said, amid a barrage of attacks that left two others dead and further undermined a fragile truce.
The attack on the Ganei Tal settlement also wounded five other non-Israeli workers, the army said.
Palestinian militant groups agreed to a de facto ceasefire in February at the behest of Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, but the truce has been prone to violations.
Israel plans to withdraw from the Gaza Strip beginning in mid-August but has vowed not to do so under fire. It has called on the Palestinian Authority to rein in militant groups in Gaza.
The mortar attack came hours after Hamas, another Islamic militant group, fired at least three rockets across the Gaza boundary at the Israeli town of Sderot, damaging an apartment building but causing no casualties.
Hamas called that salvo revenge for a confrontation between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters at a major Jerusalem mosque on Monday.
Also Tuesday, Israeli soldiers killed a top Islamic Jihad militant in a gunbattle in the West Bank.
Morwah Kamil, head of the Islamic Jihad military wing in Jenin, was killed in a lengthy gunbattle that erupted when Israeli troops entered the town of Qabatiya, near Jenin, in an arrest raid, witnesses said. The Israeli army confirmed Kamil was the object of the raid.
Another gunman was killed, and five Palestinians were wounded, witnesses said. The Israeli army said one soldier was slightly injured in the confrontation, in which Palestinian gunmen in several locations traded fire with soldiers.
