Hamas policemen inspect a boat on the coast of Deir al-Balah, in Gaza.
At least four Palestinians were killed when Israeli naval commandos opened fire on what they said was a squad of militants in diving suits off the coast of Gaza today.
The Palestinians "were on their way to carry out an attack in Israel", a military spokesman said.
The spokesman declined to give any further details about how the military had identified the men or what they had been doing in the sea.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant offshoot of Fatah, said the men killed were members of its marine unit, who were training. One Palestinian was missing, and there were no Israeli casualties.
The attack follows a week in which the Israeli navy has faced international criticism for its assault on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship in a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, in which nine activists were killed.
An anonymous military official told Israel's army radio: "This will be a shot in the arm for the commandos after the hard week they have been through."
Today's incident was followed by an air strike on what the military spokesman described as "terrorists trying to fire rockets into Israel" from the northern Gaza Strip.
He could not confirm casualties, although at least one Palestinian was believed to have been seriously injured.
"The bloody escalation today is a desperate attempt by the occupation government to divert the world attention away from the massacre committed against the flotilla," Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, told reporters in Gaza.
According to Israeli media reports, the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has held at least half a dozen telephone conversations with world leaders over the past few days. He has faced under intense pressure to agree to an international commission of inquiry into the assault on the aid flotilla.
The Israeli government is keen to deflect an international investigation, preferring an internal inquiry, possibly with limited US representation.
Source http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/07/israel-kills-four-palestinians-gaza
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