6 Palestinians killed, 26 wounded in Israeli raids

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GAZA CITY, AUG 15 (AP): Israeli aircraft attacked Islamic militants in the southern Gaza Strip and ground troops clashed with fighters in a daylong raid against suspected extremists. Four fighters and two civilians died in the clashes Tuesday and 26 people were wounded, including at least five civilians, Palestinian medical officials and militant factions said. Israel's army said its soldiers arrested some 100 militants before withdrawing.
Separately, two security officers for Gaza's Hamas rulers were reported killed in fierce fighting with a powerful Palestinian clan linked to the kidnapping of British journalist Alan Johnston earlier this year.
Factional violence has been largely eradicated in Gaza since Hamas militiamen wrested control of the coastal strip from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement in mid-June, but there have been occasional flare-ups. After Hamas seized Gaza, Abbas expelled the militant Islamic group from the Palestinian coalition government and formed an administration of moderates based in the West Bank that the US and other Western nations hope can make peace with Israel. In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the agency's third-highest diplomat, Undersecretary of State Nick Burns, would meet with top Israeli and Palestinian officials during a three-day visit beginning Wednesday.
He said Burns would push for progress toward establishing a "political horizon" for the Palestinian people - diplomatic shorthand for the outlines of an independent Palestinian state that will be a major focus of an international meeting the US has proposed for this fall.
McCormack had no comment on the clashes in Gaza. Hamas said one of its men died in a pre-dawn Israeli airstrike east of the town of Khan Younis. A second fighter and his 70-year-old mother were killed when Israeli soldiers fired at their house, Hamas said.