JERUSALEM, June 20, 2007 (AFP) - Three Palestinian militants were shot dead in clashes with Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, in the first such deadly fighting since Hamas seized control of the territory last week.

Two fighters from Hamas's armed Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades and one from the rival Popular Resistance Committees were killed after the clashes erupted in near the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, local medics said.

Hamas and rival militant group Islamic Jihad said its fighters fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades on the Israeli troops, who had pushed up to a kilometre (more than half a mile) inside the territory.

The dead militants from Hamas were named as Khaled al-Farra, 18, and Ahmed al-Abadlah, 20.

It was the first such deadly fighting in Gaza between Israeli soldiers and Hamas, which last week routed loyalists of Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and captured full control of the narrow coastal territory.

An Israeli soldier was seriously wounded by Palestinian fire during the Gaza incursion which the army said extended several hundred metres (yards) into Gaza, west of the Kissufim border crossing.

Israeli special forces also shot dead two wanted Palestinian militants during an operation to arrest them in the northern occupied West Bank.

The army said they were killed when the militants opened fire on the unit that came to arrest them near the town of Jenin.

They were named as 25-year-old Ziad Malaysheh and 25-year-old Ibrahim Abed.

Wednesday's deaths brought to 5,752 the number of people killed since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP count.

The Israeli military also said that it had arrested 15 wanted Palestinians overnight during operations across the West Bank.

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