| Israeli troops overnight killed two armed Hamas militants as they were en route to attack a convoy near the controversial Netzarim Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, sources on both sides said on Wednesday. The soldiers spotted the pair armed with an anti-tank rocket launcher approaching from the road connecting Karni, an entrance point between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and Netzarim. The troops shot and killed the men and later found three rockets as well as automatic weapons near the bodies, Israeli military sources said. The armed wing of the radical Palestinian movement Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed that two of its members had been killed. Tarek Sobhi Timraz (21), and Hosssam Ahmed Hammad (22), had been on their way to commit an attack on a âconvoy carrying Zionist usurpersâ, it said. Another suspected Palestinian militant was wounded in the leg by Israeli army gunfire in the Deir al-Balah area of southern Gaza as he approached a fence surrounding another Jewish settlement in the area, Israeli sources said. |