(dpa) - An Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a car with Hamas gunmen in the southern Gaza Strip Wednesday morning, killing five Palestinians, first aid officials said.
Four others were injured when two missiles struck the car west of Khan Younis, said Gaza emergency services chief Mo'aweya Hassanein.
Initial reports said the vehicle was a Hamas police car, but witnesses later said it was a private car carrying members of the radical Islamic movement's armed wing.
They said the two missiles first hit the car, killing the five, and a third missile struck nearby some 10 minutes later, killing no- one.
An Islamic Jihad militant was also killed overnight in central Gaza's al-Bureij refugee camp, with the radical faction saying he died in an earlier airstrike.
The Israeli military, however, denied involvement in his death.
A spokeswoman said she was checking details about the late morning aerial attack in southern Gaza.
The airstrikes came after Palestinian militants launched Gaza- produced Qassam, al-Quds and Nasser rockets at southern Israeli communities bordering the Strip. A 10-year-old Israeli was moderately injured Monday in the Israeli town of Sderot, just north-east of Gaza, when shrapnel from a rocket struck his shoulder.