Israelis kill five as Sharon rejects opposition

ISRAELI troops killed five Palestinian militants in gun battles yesterday as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought to dampen rising pressure for a referendum on his plan to withdraw from occupied Gaza.

In a rare episode of its kind, two Hamas militants breached the new security fence along Gaza’s border with Israel and moved in on a kibbutz, or collective farm, for an attack when they were spotted and shot dead by troops, military sources said.

Two other militants were killed while trying to plant a bomb near a Jewish settlement in an occupied part of southern Gaza, the Islamic Jihad group said. Another militant was killed, and a soldier hurt, near another settlement, a military source said.