GAZA CITY (AFP) - Two Palestinian men including an armed militant were killed by Israeli fire in the southern Gaza Strip, while a would-be female bomber was arrested in the West Bank.
The hardline Islamic Jihad group said Wednesday that one of its militants had been shot dead by troops as he and other gunmen prepared to attack an army position near Rafah on the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt.
Jihad Hassanein, 21, was killed while his fellow militants managed to escape, the group said in a telephone call to AFP.
Israeli military sources said soldiers had "opened fire Wednesday at dawn at three suspects who were approaching their position in a restricted area near Rafah -- probably to plant an explosive device."
"The soldiers apparently hit two of the suspects while the third one fled," they added.
Also in Rafah, Palestinian man Ahmed Breika, 29, was killed inside his home by a volley of automatic fire from an Israeli tank, medics said.
The death toll for the four-year old Palestinian intifada now stands at 4,504 people, including 3,475 Palestinians and 955 Israelis, according to an AFP tally.
Meanwhile in the southern West Bank, Israeli troops arrested a 29-year-old Palestinian woman who was planning to carry out a suicide attack in Israel, Israeli public radio said.
The woman's husband and brother were killed by the army in April 2003. Both were militants with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group loosely affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah movement.
Ahlam Jawarish was arrested at her father's home near Beit Jala, not far from Bethlehem, Palestinian security sources told AFP.
Israeli military sources confirmed the arrest.