Palestinians killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza

Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a group of people east of Beit Hanun.

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GAZA CITY // Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on north Gaza yesterday.

"Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike targeting a group of people east of Beit Hanun," said Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for the Hamas-run emergency services.

Israel military confirmed the air strike.

Witnesses identified the two men as members of the extremist Islamic Jihad movement and said they were riding a motorcycle near the Israeli border at the time.

They named the two as Mohammed Shabat and Ismail Odeh, saying both were in their 20s.

The Israeli military said the two men were part of a "squad of snipers operating near the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip".

"The squad is one of those responsible for the latest sniping incidents along the security fence in the Gaza Strip, including the incident in which terrorists fired at an Israeli farmer near Kibbutz Nir Oz on Thursday, June 14, 2012," the army said.

The Israeli military staged two raids over Gaza during the night, hitting a weapons manufacturing site in the south and another "terror activity site" in the centre of the coastal strip.

The raids came several hours after militants fired eight mortars at troops on the border.