GAZA, July 5, 2006 (AFP) - A Palestinian driver for the Arab satellite television channel Al-Jazeera was wounded late Wednesday by gunfire in Beit Hanun in northern Gaza Strip, witnesses and a medical official said.

Witnesses said the Al-Jazeera crew was caught in crossfire between Palestinian militants and Israeli tanks which were posted at a distance.

A medical official named the driver as Mohammed Kaskin and said he had suffered serious head injuries.

Earlier in the evening, witnesses said Israeli tanks had pushed into an industrial zone in the north of Gaza near the Erez border crossing point and stopped at the sites of the two former Israeli settlements of Elei Sinai and Nissanit, evacuated last year.

The Israeli security cabinet Wednesday authorized the army to advance further into Gaza as part of a ratched-up response to the kidnapping by Palestinian militants of a 19-year-old Israeli soldier last week.

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