JERUSALEM - Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip shot and killed five unarmed Palestinians trying to penetrate the barbed wire-topped security fence that separates the Palestinian territory from Israel, a military spokesman said yesterday.
Late yesterday, Palestinian militants shot and killed two Israelis near Hebron in the West Bank, close to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, an interfaith shrine that has been a flash point for conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops in separate incidents.
The five deaths in the Gaza Strip were the most resulting from a single military operation since Israeli troops killed 10 Palestinians in a Gaza refugee camp a week ago during a raid on a militant's apartment house.
A day after the Gaza Strip shootings, which occurred late Wednesday, there was still no explanation from Israeli or Palestinian officials of why the five men were trying to enter Israel. Nor had Israel publicly identified the men or made arrangements to return their bodies to the Gaza Strip.
More than 700,000 Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip in virtual isolation, largely barred from travel to Israel since the Palestinian uprising began 26 months ago.
Palestinian medical officials and Internet sites theorized that the five were laborers, trying to sneak into Israel to find work. Many Gaza residents who used to work in Israel lost their jobs when the Gaza border was tightened after the uprising, and the area, already desperately poor, has gone farther downhill after two years of sporadic military action.
Moreover, no militant group had claimed the men as martyrs, as frequently occurs after members of such groups are killed by Israeli gunfire.
But there was no way to know for certain whether the five were militants or civilians. Israeli military spokesmen said last night that Israeli troops in the area had been alerted before the shootings Wednesday that Gaza-based militants might be seeking to slip across the border. Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip have often been the targets of terrorist attacks.
An Israeli military spokesman said lookouts spotted the five men Wednesday night near the Karni border crossing, crawling toward the tall border fence and dragging two long objects.
"In accordance with the procedure for that area," he said, "the forces opened fire. And in the morning we found there were five Palestinians, and they had two ladders."
Israeli radio reported last night that the military was in negotiations with Palestinian officials to return the bodies to Gaza.
In separate incidents yesterday, two more Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops.
In the first, the Israeli military said, troops shot and killed a Palestinian as he and a second man, both armed, tried to penetrate a security fence near Gush Qatif, a Jewish town adjoining the Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border. The second man escaped.
Israeli radio reported later that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine had claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the dead man as Wael Abu Libde of Rafah, a Gaza village on the Egyptian border.
The second killing occurred late last night, after troops spotted a Palestinian trying to enter Kissufim, a kibbutz just over a mile from Israel's border with the central Gaza Strip. Military officials said the unidentified man carried two rifles and an Israeli army uniform.
The two unidentified Israelis killed late yesterday in Hebron were ambushed by gunmen barely 60 yards from the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a shrine revered by Jews and Muslims alike as the burial place of Abraham. There was a similar ambush nearby on Nov. 15, in which 12 Israelis were killed.