By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - The Israeli army killed at least sixPalestinian militants in Gaza and one in the occupied West Bankon Wednesday, including Hamas men who Gaza residents said hadreturned recently from training in Syria or Iran.
Five of the militants, senior members of the Islamist Hamasmovement that controls the Gaza Strip, were killed when the vanin which they were travelling was attacked from the air nearthe southern town of Khan Younis, medical officials said.
Local residents who knew the men said some of them hadundergone training in Syria or Iran and returned home afterHamas breached the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt in defianceof an Israeli blockade of the territory of 1.5 million people.
Abu Ubaida, spokesman of Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-QassamBrigades, denied they had travelled outside the Gaza Strip.
Egypt closed the border, at Rafah, about two weeks afterthe breach, but allowed Palestinians who had crossed into itsterritory to go back to the Gaza Strip.
In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli undercover forceskilled one militant and wounded and detained four others, aPalestinian official said. The Israeli army gave no immediatedetails about what it described as a routine operation.
Israel's military intelligence chief said on Tuesday thatdozens of Gaza militants who had gone "primarily to Syria butalso to Iran for training in various areas of terror expertise"had taken advantage of the open Rafah border to return home.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said the air strike was a jointoperation by the military and the Shin Bet intelligenceservice.
Israel frequently carries out raids and air strikes in Gazain a declared bid to curb cross-border rocket attacks bymilitants.
But Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri called the strike on thevan an Israeli "assassination" of senior members of the group'sarmed wing and said they had not been on an operationalmission.
A militant from the Islamic Jihad group was killed in aseparate air attack east of Bureij refugee camp in the centralGaza Strip, medical workers said.
(Additional reporting by Atef Sa'ad and Labib Nasir inNablus and Ari Rabinovitch and Avida Landau in Jerusalem,Writing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by CharlesDick)
