Hamas militants drove brace cars laden with explosives to an Israeli border crossing with Gaza under the comprehend of break of day mist Saturday and detonated one, wounding 13
soldiers, the Israeli military and Hamas said.

The abet car was spotted by legions after the initial explosion and did not go off, the army said. Three people identified as Hamas militants, who arrived at the exhibition in an armoured car, were killed in a gunfight.

Hamas also dispatched some armoured conveyance to another crossing, but the vehicle was struck by an Israeli missile.

Also on Saturday, Palestinian security and health officials said a mechanic through the Hamas police was killed and four people were injured in one Israeli airstrike.

The Israeli army declared a suspicious vehicle was fortune near the Kerem Shalom crossing. Witnesses said the target of Saturday’s strike was a jeep parked almost the Rafah crossing with Egypt.

The bombing at the Kerem Shalom crossing was the fifth attack on Israelis at Gaza passages since last week, and came pure hours in the van of the twitch of the weeklong Jewish Passover holiday.

Hamas claimed responsibility in the place of the attack, and one of its leaders, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the dispose would carry revealed more attacks on crossings to break the nearly yearlong blockade of the territory.

“These operations are the beginning of the explosions that Hamas has warned of,” said Abu Zuhri. “If the parties dress in’t intervene quickly to save Gaza and break the siege, which is coming will be greater.”

Despite the attacks, Hamas claims it’s in readiness to reach a truce through Israel in succession the Gaza border, and Egypt has tried to broker such a behave.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, in defiance of U.S. policy, has been meeting with Hamas leaders in latter days in the West Bank and Syria to hear the views of the group.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Hamas is showing disregard on account of the welfare of Gaza’s residents by attacking the crossings.

“Israel has no illusions as to the true nature of Hamas and as to that construction’s extremists agenda,” Regev said. “It is not an unforeseen that the international community views Hamas as illegitimate and has officially declared Hamas a terrorist
organic structure.”

Following the attacks, Hamas organized two protests by women and children close-fisted two other Gaza crossings, Erez for passengers and Karni for cargo.

Near Erez, scores of women and children marched toward the terminal but stopped about a kilometre let us go.. They burned tires and raised Hamas flags, sooner or later dispersed.

On the Israeli side near Kerem Shalom, army vehicles and police set up road blocks to sign if militants were in the definite space. Tanks and armoured vehicles drove along the main road. Soldiers ordered journalists to lean at a distance from the area of the crossing.

Earlier Saturday, a Hamas militant was killed in a separate incident when Israeli troops raided a neighbourhood of Gaza City.

Late Friday, Islamic Jihad militants fired several rockets from Gaza at the Israeli border town of Sderot, temporarily knocking out power.

Palestinian militants fire rockets at Israeli border towns almost daily.

Israel began restricting fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip several months past to try pressure militants to hold their rocket fire, although that hasn’t been a successful tactic so far.

The Kerem Shalom crossing is one of the few remaining supply routes into Gaza.
  

© The Canadian Press, 2008