7 killed in ME violence

The deaths in the southern town of Sderot brought the toll from a flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian violence to seven -- four of them Palestinians -- in less than 12 hours from five separate incidents.

A third Israeli died in an explosion carried out by Hamas underneath an army observation post in southern Gaza.

The flare-up also punctured optimism among the Israeli leadership that they had managed to bring Palestinian militant groups to heel after one of the longest periods of relative calm in the region since the start of the intifada in September 2000.

Around a dozen other people were wounded when four Qassam rockets, named after the military wing of Hamas, landed in Sderot. The second fatality was a middle-aged male.

Palestinian militants have fired more than 300 Qassam rockets at Sderot and other areas in southern Israel since February 2002, but they had never caused any fatalities.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops staged a raid into the northern West Bank town of Jenin early Monday, before moving into the nearby village of Yamun to search for militants from the radical Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Palestinian security sources and an AFP correspondent said.

One Palestinian gunman was wounded during clashes in Jenin, medics said.