Two Palestinians were killed and five others were wounded Thursday in a predawn Israeli air strike on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, reports and witnesses said.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said in an e-mailed press statement that Israeli F-16 fighter jets struck with air-to-ground missiles an underground smuggling tunnel on the border.

Husam al-Sofi, a resident of Rafah in southern Gaza and Mohamed el-Aqra'a, 38, were killed in the air strike, the statement said, adding that the five injured had been sent to local hospital.

Eyewitnesses in Rafah said that Israeli air fighters struck a tunnel with two missiles in the border area between Rafah and Egypt.

An Israeli army spokesman said radical militants in the Egyptian Peninsula of Sinai fired about seven makeshift rockets into southern Israel overnight.

Israeli media quoted army officials as saying that the air strike was a retaliation against the rockets attacks launched from Sinai into the Israeli port city of Eilat.

Two days ago, Israeli fighter jets launched about 17 successive air strikes on Gaza military posts and facilities belonging to the military wing of Hamas and other groups.

source: Xinhua