Gaza - Nine Palestinians, including five children and three Hamas militants, were killed on Friday as Israel's army escalated military operations on the Gaza Strip, medical sources said.

An Islamic Hamas militant was killed in a fresh Israeli airstrike on Friday evening east of al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, the sources said.

Earlier on Friday afternoon, medics said that five Palestinians including four children were killed and 28 wounded in Israeli artillery shelling on the refugee camp.

In an Israeli incursion into the area early on Friday morning, Israeli soldiers shot dead Reyad al-Aweisi, 12 years old, and wounded five others during in the refugee camp.

At dawn on Friday, medics and witnesses said that two Islamic Hamas militants were killed and two were wounded in two Israeli airstrikes on an area east of the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis.

Medical sources at Nasser Hospital in the town said that Mustafa and Amin al-Najjar from the village of Khuza'a were killed as Israeli aircraft struck a group of Hamas armed wing militants. Two more militants injured.

Residents and Hamas sources said that around 15 Israeli army tanks, armored vehicles and bulldozers incurred early in the morning into an area east of al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

They said that bulldozers razed lands, while heavy gun battles erupted in the area between Israeli soldiers and militants belong to different Gaza armed groups.

The residents also said that the Israeli artillery fired several shells at the area, wounding at least five people who were taken to the hospital. Medics said that two of the five are in serious conditions.

Militants of Hamas armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, Islamic Jihad (Holy War) and the Popular Resistance Committees carried out a series of attacks by grenades and anti-tanks missiles against the invading Israeli forces. (dpa)