Gaza air strikes kill eight Palestinian fighters: Medics

Medics say Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed eight Palestinian fighters but military officials claim they blew themselves up.

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(AAP)

Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed eight Palestinian militants, medics say, following the recovery of several bodies from a collapsed tunnel.

But Israel's military claimed on Monday it had not targeted the tunnel, and the militants had blown themselves up while handling explosives for use in attacks against the army.

The strikes came after a day in which armed groups fired at least 25 rockets and mortar rounds at southern Israel, and intermittent rocket fire kept up during the day on Monday.

Two of the militants were killed east of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza in a missile strike, which came shortly before midnight, witnesses said.

In a separate drone strike in the southern city of Rafah, another militant was critically wounded, and later died of his injuries, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

The army confirmed a series of raids across Gaza, saying they had targeted a group of people involved in "launching rockets from central Gaza" as well as "nine terror sites and concealed rocket launchers".

Several hours after midnight, two militants were killed and two civilians wounded in what Qudra said was a drone strike east of Rafah which caused the collapse of a tunnel.

The bodies of three more militants were later pulled from the passage and one was found critically injured.

The military wing of the Islamist movement Hamas, which dominates Gaza, said in total six of its militants were killed in that strike, without accounting for the sixth.

But Israel's army said it had not targeted that tunnel overnight, although it had bombed it several days before.

"We attacked this site a few days ago," said army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.

But "there was no Israeli air strike there" since then, he told journalists in a phone conference.

The militants were "planting explosives that were supposed to be used against Israeli forces ... (and) meddled with some of the explosives ... That was the (cause) of the explosion and that's why they died," he said.

Meanwhile, medics said five civilians were wounded in the northern town of Beit Hanun after a rocket fired by militants fell short of Israel.


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