Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian militants, one of them a woman, near the border fence between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip today, according to Palestinian medics and the Israeli army.
Another militant was killed by troops near Jenin in the occupied West Bank, medics said.
The woman, identified as Maissa Fanouna, was the first female militant killed in Gaza since an elderly woman blew herself up near Israeli troops during a raid in the north of the coastal enclave just over a year ago.
The Islamic Jihad militant group said the 23-year-old, a student of English literature from the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, was a member of its organisation.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops shot at a man and a woman who opened fire at them near the border fence near a key crossing in northern Gaza.
Medical officials who collected the woman's body said a rifle was seen on the ground where she was lying. The other gunman's body had not yet been collected, the official said.
The Israeli army also said troops opened fire at several gunmen who approached a checkpoint near Jenin in the northern West Bank, where President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction holds sway, and shot one of them.
Islamic Jihad said the dead man was a member of its organisation. Medical workers in Jenin said they recovered the body near the village of Birqin.
The Jewish state has said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas must rein in militants as a prerequisite to any deal on creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians say Israeli raids into the occupied West Bank undermine a Western-backed internal Palestinian security push.
US President George W. Bush is due to visit Israel and the West Bank this week to shore up efforts to reach a peace deal before he leaves the White House in January 2009.
Yesterday Israeli troops killed four Palestinians in a raid into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip .
Palestinian officials said three of the dead in the al-Bureij refugee camp were civilians - a woman, an 18-year-old man and a 16-year-old youth. The fourth was a Hamas gunman killed in battle with the Israelis, the Islamist faction said.