RAFAH, Gaza Strip, Aug 3 (AFP) - Three Palestinians were killed and 17 wounded Tuesday by a massive explosion during an Israeli army incursion into the flashpoint southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.
The three dead were named as Akram Hadidi, 31, Maisara Abu Soneima, 19, and Mohammed Abu Naba, 18.
Among the wounded were three children under the age of 10 as well as a Palestinian cameraman for the Reuters news agency.
Witnesses said the blast was caused by a tank shell although Israeli sources insisted their forces had nothing to do with the explosion.
Around half a dozen tanks had entered the town in the early hours in the latest of a series of operations designed to find tunnels which are used to smuggle in weapons from under the border with neighbouring Egypt.
The armed wing of the Islamic militant group Hamas said in a statement that it had fired rockets against the tanks and Israeli army jeeps near a clinic serving Palestinian refugees.
An Israeli source said that while there had been exchanges of fire, the fatal blast was not caused by the soldiers.
"The last time we fired in the area was about an hour and a half before. For sure it had nothing to do with us," he said.
Rafah has been the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting in the Middle East conflict in recent months, with some 40 Palestinians killed during a major Israeli offensive in May.
Residents said 10 houses had been bulldozed during the latest operation which has so far failed to locate any tunnels.
The latest deaths brought the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, to 4,213, including 3,216 Palestinians and 926 Israelis.
Meanwhile, Palestinian landowners near the West Bank town of Bethlehem were also involved in clashes with Israeli soldiers Tuesday over land confiscation orders imposed as part of a roadbuilding project.
The landowners had hurled stones at the soldiers who in turn fired teargas in a bid to disperse the crowds, witnesses said.
On the diplomatic front, Israel was rebuked by the United States over a decision to approve the construction of 600 new homes for Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
"Our comment is that the roadmap calls for an end to all settlement activities, including natural growth," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said overnight in Washington when asked about the green light given to the building work in Maale Adumim, the largest of the West Bank settlements.
Under the terms of the roadmap peace plan, Israel is obliged to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied territories where around 245,000 Israelis live but officials said Monday that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz had approved the expansion.
Ereli said US officials had emphasised to Sharon and his government the importance that Washington attaches to the end to settlement activity but declined to openly criticize its chief Middle East ally.