MORAG SETTLEMENT, Gaza Strip (AFP) - Three Israeli soldiers and three Palestinians were killed during intense gunbattles after a group of militants managed to break into a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
The soldiers, who included an officer, were shot dead after the members of three radical Palestinian movements managed to break into the settlement of Morag in the south of the territory under heavy fog cover.
"The gunmen infiltrated under the cover of the community`s greenhouses and opened fire at the soldiers, killing an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) officer and another two IDF soldiers," an army statement said, adding that a fourth soldier had been wounded.
"IDF soldiers opened fire at the gunmen and killed them. Two AK-47 assault rifles, 9 magazines and four grenades were found on the bodies of the two gunmen."
However, as the Israeli commander of the region, General Shmuel Zacai, attempted to hold a press conference in Morag later, it became clear that a third Palestinian was still at large.
Reporters were forced to take cover as the Palestinian became embroiled in a further exchange of fire with the soldiers which was broadcast live on Israeli radio. A correspondent from the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot was shot in the leg.
The gunbattle lasted about half an hour before the third Palestinian was shot dead, a military spokesman said.
The slain troops were named as Captain Tal Berdugo, 22 Sergeant Israel Luttaty, 20, and 21-year-old Sergeant Nir Sami.
News of the militants` deaths was announced by loudspeaker in the nearby Rafah and Khan Yunis Palestinian refugee camps.
The announcements also claimed the attack in the name of three of the smaller militant groups -- the Popular Resistance Committees, Aburish and Islamic Jihad.
Palestinian sources named the three dead men as 22-year-old Mohammed El Azazi from Rafah, Yussef Amr, 19, from Gaza City, and Imad Abu Samhadana, 21, who was also from Rafah.
The prospect of an Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip has failed to halt the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence. The death toll now stands at 4,335 since the outbreak of hostilities in September 2000.
In an interview ahead of the Yom Kippur holiday, the holiest day in the Jewish year and which begins at sundown on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza would start in the summer of 2005 and last 12 weeks.
Claiming he has no Palestinian partner in the peace process, Sharon has opted to implement a unilateral pullout from Gaza and four small West Bank settlements.
His Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qorei, however, said that contacts had not been severed.
"From the early beginning, I`ve said I have no problem to meet with Mr Sharon," he added in a radio interview.
In overnight violence, around 15 Palestinians were wounded in Khan Yunis in a series of Israeli operations, including a helicopter strike. Palestinian sources also reported that around 10 houses had been demolished by the army in the same area.
In other events on the ground, around 30 Palestinians needed treatment when Israeli troops used rubber bullets to break up a demonstration against the controversial West Bank barrier in the south of the territory.
Funerals, meanwhile were held for two Israeli border policemen who were killed on Wednesday in a suicide attack by a Palestinian woman bomber.
Eighteen-year-old Zainab Ali Abu Salem from a refugee camp in the Nablus region of the northern West Bank injured 17 other people when she blew herself up at a checkpoint in the French Hill district of east Jerusalem.
As is standard after such suicide attacks, the Israeli army demolished the bomber`s family home early Thursday.