The Israeli army has killed a Hamas militant in Gaza amid warnings that the escalation of violence between the two sides could sink revived peace efforts.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees appealed to Israel to lift a lockdown of Gaza that it imposed yesterday and to reopen crossings into the impoverished territory where most residents depend on food aid.
There has been a sharp flare-up of violence this week between the army and the Islamist Hamas movement.
Since Tuesday Israeli strikes have killed some 32 people, many of them militants, inside Gaza and Hamas has fired around 150 rockets and mortar shells into the Jewish state, wounding more than 10 people.
The violence showed no sign of abating today.
In northern Gaza, the latest Israeli air strike killed a member of Hamas's armed wing in the town of Jabaliya.
In Israel itself, at least five rockets struck communities around Gaza, causing damage but no casualties in an attack claimed by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
And in the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead a militant with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern town of Nablus.
The upsurge in fighting comes a week after US President George W Bush left Israel following a peace mission during which he predicted that the two sides would sign a treaty within a year.
