Six Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Tuesday, in the first Israeli-Palestinian confrontation since the two sides agreed to a truce nearly five months ago.

Israeli troops and Palestinian militants clashed in a fierce gun battle along the Israel-Gaza border, killing one Palestinian gunman and wounding three others. Hours later, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

All the dead were members of the Hamas Islamist group which controls the coastal enclave. Residents identified Mazen Seada, a senior Hamas commander in central Gaza, as one of the men who was killed.

The Israeli military said it entered the coastal Gaza Strip area in a covert operation to detonate a tunnel 250m inside Gaza that militants planned to use to abduct Israeli soldiers. The army claimed that the operation did not violate the truce, calling it a “legitimate step” to isolate immediate threats to Israel from Gaza.

“We emphasise that this is a pinpoint operation to thwart an immediate threat and there is no intention to bring about the end of the ceasefire,” said a military spokeswoman.

Israel forged a truce with the militant Hamas group in June, ending a year-long deadly cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israel reprisals. Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in June, 2007, by routing Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, has said that they consider any Israeli infraction of the truce as grounds for immediate retaliation.

Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the military wing of Hamas, said that Hamas would seek revenge for the night’s casualties.

“Our response will be harsh, and the enemy will play a heavy price,” Hamas said in a statement on the website of its military wing.

In the early hours of Wednesday, the Israeli military said at least 35 rockets were fired from the strip, but there was no immediate word of injuries or damage. Hamas said it fired the rockets.

A Hamas spokesman said the gunmen spotted Israeli troops approaching and fired at them before an unmanned aerial drone launched a rocket into the area. Hamas gunmen then began to fire mortar bombs.

The deaths marked the second incident of Palestinian fatalities since the truce took effect. In July, Israeli troops shot and killed a teenage Palestinian militant along the border with the Gaza Strip.

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