Five killed in Gaza and West Bank

Palestinians clashed with the Israeli army in Qabatiya

Two Palestinians, one of them a local militant leader, have been killed during a gunfight with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.

Mraweh Kamil, Islamic Jihad's leader in Jenin, was killed after Israeli troops sealed off the house he was hiding in.

Later, Palestinian militants fired a mortar shell into a Jewish settlement in Gaza, killing one Palestinian and one Chinese employee.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops shot dead a man who they said had climbed over the border fence from Egypt. They said they believed he was an Egyptian involved in weapons smuggling.

The killings come despite a four-month truce which reduced violence in Gaza and the West Bank, correspondents say.

The gunfight took place in the West Bank town of Qabatiya. Shooting broke out when troops entered the town in the middle of the night to carry out an arrest raid.

An Israeli army spokesman said Mraweh Kamil had been preparing for attacks on Israel.

Soldiers encircled the house where Kamil took refuge and there was a gun battle which grew fiercer as local fighters came to his aid.

A Palestinian security officer was also killed and others wounded.

The Israeli army said one of its soldiers was lightly wounded.

Rocket attacks

Hours later, Palestinian militants fired a mortar shell at an Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip, Ganei Tal.

No-one was injured in the Sderot rocket attack

It crashed into an area of greenhouses, killing a Palestinian and a Chinese worker and injuring five other workers. They were among the several hundred agricultural workers employed in Gaza's settlements.

Palestinian militants also fired at least three rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot. One rocket hit a house, but there were no casualties.

Hamas claimed responsibility for at least some of the attacks.

It said they were in retaliation for the death of the Islamic Jihad leader killed earlier in the day, as well as a confrontation on Monday between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.

Despite the ceasefire agreed in February, Israel continues to go after members of Islamic Jihad, saying there is an active cell in the northern West Bank planning bomb attacks, the BBC's Barbara Plett in Jerusalem says.

Palestinian officials say the raids are much wider and that more than 500 men from different factions have been arrested since the truce was agreed. They say this endangers the ceasefire because the wanted men feel they have no protection.