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Gaza: A rocket launched from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip killed a man in Israel on Wednesday, the first such fatality in nine months, after Israeli forces killed eight Palestinians, most of them fighters, in the territory.
The rocket attack, claimed by Hamas, seemed certain to increase public pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to order tougher military action in the Gaza Strip, including a possible widescale ground operation.
Mounting violence could complicate peace talks between Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian National Authority, negotiations which the United States hope can lead to a statehood deal this year.
"Israel will take the necessary steps to bring these lethal rocket attacks to an end. Those attacking us will be confronted by an Israel that is compelled to defend itself, and that is how we shall proceed," said David Baker, a government spokesman.
Earlier in the day, five fighters, senior members of Hamas, were killed when the van in which they were travelling was attacked from the air near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, medical officials said.
Local residents who knew the men said some of them had undergone training in Syria or Iran and returned home after Hamas breached the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt last month in defiance of an Israeli blockade of the territory.
Abu Ubaida, spokesman of Hamas's Izz Al Deen Al Qassam Brigades, denied they had travelled outside the Gaza Strip, whose border with Egypt has been resealed.
Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip in June, struck back by firing more than 30 rockets at southern Israel, and two men, who relatives said were civilians, were killed in an Israeli air strike on a launching site in the northern Gaza Strip.
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