Gaza City: Israel locked down the Gaza Strip, the same day its air strikes killed five more Palestinians there in a bid to halt nearly daily rocket fire and as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowing to keep up raids on gunmen in the Hamas-run territory.

Late last night, Defence Minister Ehud Barak ordered the closure of all border crossings between Israel and Gaza.

In announcing the closure, a ministry official said it would remain in effect for several days and would affect both commercial traffic and individual travelers. He added that, in the meanwhile, crossings would be authorised to respond to "exceptional humanitarian needs."

Israel imposed heavy restrictions on movement in and out of Gaza in the autumn after declaring Gaza, seized in June by the Islamist movement Hamas, a "hostile entity."

The announcement came on a day of continuing Israeli air strikes on the territory, which saw five more Palestinians killed.

Raad Abu Foull, 43,a commander in the Popular Resistance Committees militant group, was killed with his wife in their car in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, medics said. The military confirmed hitting a car transporting a "rocket-manufacturing cell".

A strike last night targeted a car in the northern Gaza Strip that was carrying members of the radical Islamic Jihad movement, killing two of them, medical sources said.

However, the blast also hit a cart traveling behind the car, killing the woman who was driving it and seriously wounding her passenger, a child. Two pedestrians were also hurt.

Source : PTI