FIVE Islamic Jihad fighters were killed and three critically wounded in an Israeli air raid on the Gaza Strip yesterday, a Palestinian official said.

The group immediately vowed revenge, and a spokesman for the military wing of Gaza's ruling Hamas organisation said other groups would consider how to respond.

Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesman for Gaza's emergency services, said an earlier report of six dead had been incorrect.

Members of Islamic Jihad's armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, said the men were killed at a training camp near the southern city of Rafah.

It was the worst such incident since a tacit ceasefire was agreed between Gaza Palestinian fighters and Israel in late August.

An Israeli military spokesman told AFP that the air force had fired on a "group of terrorists preparing to fire long-range rockets" and that the attack had "prevented the attempted firing."

An Al-Quds Brigades commander, Ahmed al-Sheikh Khalil, was among the fighters killed in the air strike, according to Islamic Jihad, which pledged to retaliate.

"This attack is a crime that will not go unpunished," a statement said. "The Zionist enemy should expect to pay a high price."

Al-Quds spokesman Abu Ahmed told AFP the group would respond "in the coming hours or days."

He accused Israel of carrying out the raid in order to heighten tensions so it could renege on freeing 550 Palestinian prisoners agreed as part of a prisoner-swap deal with Gaza rulers Hamas for the liberation of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Israel released 477 prisoners in exchange for Shalit earlier this month.

A spokesman for Hamas's Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said other groups were mulling their response.

"The occupation is completely responsible for for the crime in Rafah and all of the resistance factions cannot leave the shedding of our martyrs' blood unanswered," spokesman Abu Obeida said. "We shall discuss the answer to this crime."

The Israeli military spokesman said the men hit on Saturday had also been responsible for firing a Grad rocket at Israel on Wednesday that had hit near the Israeli city of Ashdod, 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the Gaza border.

On Thursday, the Israeli air force carried out three raids on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for that attack, witnesses said.

The raids targeted areas east and west of Khan Yunis in the south of the Strip, and a base of Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades was hit, they said.

An Israeli army spokesman said that aircraft had "attacked three terrorist sites in the Gaza Strip as well as an arms factory in the south of the territory."

The firing of the Grad rocket and the subsequent air raids were the first incidents since Israel and Hamas reached the agreement last week under which Israel agreed to release a total of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.

AFP