Israel announced that it fired at Palestinians at dawn yesterday near the Gaza border fence, where the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the death of three youths in the Gaza Strip. In the meantime, dozens of Palestinians held a sit-in in support of eight prisoners who have been on hunger strike for several periods in Israeli jails.

In a statement, the Israeli army announced that it fired late on Saturday evening from a helicopter and a tank towards Palestinians in front of the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel.

This came after three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards southern Israel on Saturday evening, as announced by the Israeli army, in the second such attack in 24 hours.

The Israeli army said its air systems intercepted two missiles without disclosing information about the third.

Israeli medics said they had treated six people, including two lightly wounded and four panic attacks.

Hours later, the Israeli army said it had "identified a number of suspected militants near the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip." "An attack helicopter and a tank opened fire at them," he said.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that «Mohammed al-Tramsi (26 years) and Mohammed Abunamus (27 years) and Mahmoud Walaydeh (24 years)) martyred by the occupation army in the northern Gaza Strip north of Beit Lahia.

A fourth Palestinian was injured in the same incident.

A Palestinian security source said Israeli aircraft had carried out raids on targets in the Gaza Strip in response. He explained that the raids targeted a Hamas observation post in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, an unspecified target near Gaza City, in addition to open land near Deir al-Balah in the center of the Strip.

The Israeli army said in a statement that the raids were "against secret Hamas targets in the northern and central Gaza Strip."

In a press statement, Hamas said that targeting young people "is a new crime of the Israeli occupation added to its black record." The spokesman for the movement, Fawzi Barhoum: «The continuation of the crimes of the occupation will be cause for the explosion of the situation and the escalation of pace».

For its part, the Islamic Jihad called the three martyrs, and described their targeting «crime».

Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinians staged a sit-in in Gaza City yesterday in support of eight Palestinian prisoners who have been on hunger strike in Israeli jails.

The protesters, under the pretext of the Jerusalem Dialogue Foundation, which is active in defending the prisoners, raised pictures of the striking prisoners and signs calling for international intervention to stop Israel's "violations" against the prisoners.

During the sit-in, Islamic Jihad leader Ahmed al-Mudallal accused Israel of "disregarding international laws and conventions" regarding the treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

He called for international action to abolish the administrative detention of the Israeli Prison Service against Palestinian prisoners, and allows it to extend the detention openly without specific charges.

He warned the leader of the «Jihad» that «the Palestinian people and their resistance will not stand idly by in the face of ongoing Israeli crimes against prisoners».

This comes as the Palestinian Prisoners Club (NGO) announced that eight Palestinian prisoners are currently being beaten in Israeli jails in order to refuse their administrative detention.

The prisoner club said in a press statement that the oldest striking prisoners is Hudhayfah Halabiya, who has been on hunger strike for 49 days and faces serious health conditions.

He said that the Israeli Prison Service "is holding the striking prisoners in solitary cells that are not suitable for human living in several prisons, and exercise the right to repressive measures to pressure them psychologically."

The Prisoners Club said that "there are no serious solutions so far regarding the demands of the striking prisoners, and there is a deliberate procrastination by the Israeli security services to physically exhaust the prisoner and put him in a very dangerous stage."

Israel holds some 5,500 Palestinians, including about 500 on administrative detention, which, according to Israeli law, permits an open extension of their detention without formal charges.