Gaza Strip: third consecutive day of violence

&to=http:// english.pravda.ru/hotspots/2002/07/08/31967.html ' target=_blank>Israeli troops killed a Palestinian Friday after militants fired missiles at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip in the third consecutive day of violence hampering efforts to salvage a shaky truce.

The army said three militants fired missiles, mortars and assault rifles from an abandoned building near the Gaza settlement of Kfar Darom. One of the militants was killed in an ensuing gunbattle with troops while two others escaped.

Israel threatened harsh retaliation for the latest attacks and warned a cease-fire reached in February at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik was in danger of collapse.

The Islamic group &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/hotspots/2001/12/30/24817.html ' target=_blank>Hamas said it carried out the attack jointly with the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades — a militant group linked to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah party — and the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees. Hamas said the attack was in retaliation for Israeli strikes, publishes USA Today.

Dozens of projectiles fell on Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, and a mortar shell exploded at an Israeli army base just outside Gaza, causing some damage but no injuries. Two rockets hit the Karni crossing point into Israel, the military said. After nightfall, a rocket landed in the yard of a house in Sderot, an Israeli town just outside Gaza, but did not explode.