Two Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrike

GAZA - Two Palestinians were killed and one seriously injured Friday afternoon when an Israeli war jet struck their car in southern Gaza City, paramedics and witnesses said.

Adham Abu Selmeya, spokesman of Gaza emergency service told reporters that two were killed and one seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike on a car that drove in the neighborhood of Tal el-Hawa.

"Ambulances brought two dead to Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City and a third person who is in critical conditions after an Israeli missile struck their car that drove in southern Gaza City," said Abu Selmeya.

Witnesses said that a Fiat Uno blue car running in the neighborhood was suddenly hit by two missiles fired from an Israeli warplane, adding that the car was completely destroyed.

The Israeli airstrike on the car was carried out several hours after Gaza militants fired two homemade rockets from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel. No injuries or damages were caused and no one claimed responsibility.

Abu Mujahid, spokesman of pro-Hamas militant group the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) said in a press statement that Zuhair al-Qaisi and Mahmoud Hanani were killed in the airstrike.

According to the spokesman, al-Qaisi is a PRC commander in the Gaza Strip, and Hanani, who is originally from the West Bank city of Nablus, was a prisoner released in October 2011 under a prisoner swap deal between Hamas and Israel.

Under the Egyptian-brokered deal, about 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were freed by Israel, in exchange for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped in 2006 in a cross- border attack by Palestinians on an Israeli army base in the southeast of the Gaza Strip.

Several freed prisoners have been arrested again by Israel in the West Bank, and Hamas has expressed outrage and accused Israel of violating the deal.