Israeli airstrike kills 5 militants in Gaza, Hamas says

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- An Israeli aircraft blew up a minivan carrying Hamas gunmen in southern Gaza on Wednesday, killing five militants including two key commanders involved rocket attacks on Israel, the militant group said.

The strike was the latest incident in intensifying violence between Hamas and Israel, which sees daily rocket attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza and regular Israeli military raids targeting the rocket squads.

The attack came as a new poll showed nearly two-thirds of Israelis support cease-fire talks with Hamas.

Burned bodies in camouflage uniforms were visible in the white minivan. Two other Hamas members were wounded in the airstrike, according to Hamas and Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Gaza Health Ministry.

Minutes after the first explosion, an Israeli missile struck another car nearby. Witnesses said the militants had abandoned that vehicle for the white minivan shortly before the strike. There were no casualties in the second attack.

"This is a new Israeli crime. It shows the bloody-mindedness of the occupation," said Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu.

The Israeli military confirmed the strikes, which it said targeted vehicles transporting militants.

The body of another Palestinian militant killed in central Gaza overnight was brought to the hospital in Gaza on Wednesday morning. The Islamic Jihad group said the man was one of its gunmen who had been killed in a clash with the Israeli military.

The Israeli military said a militant approached the Gaza-Israel border fence late Wednesday and that soldiers had seen an explosion, likely caused by explosives the militant was carrying.

Israel's military operations in Gaza have not succeeded in stopping the rocket fire, and a poll published in an Israeli paper Wednesday indicated that a majority of Israelis now believe the government should hold talks with Hamas -- a proposal once unthinkable given Hamas' history of suicide bombings in Israel and its calls for Israel's destruction.

Israel has been working to isolate Hamas since the Islamic group came to power in Gaza in June, 2007 and has said talks with the group will not be possible until it recognizes Israel, renounces violence and observes signed peace agreements. Hamas has been labeled a terror organization by Israel, the U.S. and European Union.

Gaza has been ruled by Hamas since the group expelled forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last June. Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations were restarted at a U.S.-sponsored Mideast conference in November. Hamas is not a party to the peace talks.

The poll, carried out by the Dialog company and published Wednesday in the Haaretz daily, showed that 64 percent of Israelis believe Israel should talk to Hamas now to bring a halt to the rocket fire and to win the release of a captured soldier, Cpl. Gilad Schalit.

Schalit was seized in June, 2006, by Hamas militants and has been held in Gaza since then as talks on a prisoner swap have stalled.

Only 28 percent of Israelis reject talks with Hamas, according to the poll. The poll included 500 respondents and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

Though the Israeli government has consistently rejected talking to the Islamic group, some Israeli officials have recently been expressing support for such talks. The officials include former heavyweights in Israel's defense establishment and Eli Moyal, mayor of the town of Sderot, which is bombarded nearly daily by Gaza militants.

Several Hamas officials have proposed a truce with Israel. But at least in the short term, that possibility seemed unlikely given Wednesday's violence and the wounding Monday of a 10-year-old Israeli boy in Sderot whose arm was partially severed and reattached in surgery.

Besides military strikes, Israel has imposed tough economic sanctions on Gaza, blocking most exports and allowing little more than basic humanitarian goods into the area.

The sanctions have caused widespread shortages of basic goods in Gaza. On Wednesday, the area's main water provider urged residents to boil all drinking water, citing a dire shortage of chlorine as a result of the blockade.

The Coastal Municipality Water Utility made the announcement in radio and newspaper advertisements. It said there was a "major concern over a health disaster due to possible contamination of the drinking water" and appealed to the international community for help.

Israeli officials were looking into the report and had no immediate comment.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)