Israeli troops killed two Palestinian gunmen in Gaza today and Palestinian militants shot dead an Israeli soldier in the West Bank.
The violence followed the killings of five Palestinians in gun battles with Israeli troops yesterday, two days after Israel ended a 17-day offensive in north Gaza in which 105 Palestinians, three Israelis and a Thai farm worker died.
An Israeli military spokesman said soldiers opened fire on two Palestinians as they crawled toward Gaza's border fence with Israel with the apparent aim of planting a bomb.
Palestinian security sources said they had been informed by Israeli authorities that two gunmen had been killed in a confrontation east of the north Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
In the northern West Bank, Palestinian gunmen fired at an Israeli army base near the Jewish settlement of Mevo Dotan, killing a soldier, the army said in a statement.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the shooting.
The group said it was retaliating for the killing, in an Israeli missile strike last month, of one of its leaders, Mahmoud Abu Halifa, in the West Bank city of Jenin.