Israelis kill 5 in Gaza, including 12-year-old and his grandmother

Israeli shells killed five people and wounded several others in the Gaza Strip on Monday, including two members of the same family who were riding a donkey cart when they were hit, Palestinian witnesses said. The dead included a 60-year-old woman and her 12-year-old grandson, medics said. The three other Palestinians who were killed Monday were standing outside an apartment building in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Beit Lahiya.

Two were civilians and the third was an off-duty police officer, residents said.

Later, an explosion in a house in eastern Gaza City on Monday caused no casualties, witnesses said. It was not immediately clear what caused the blast.

Germany said on Monday it was hopeful for progress on the release of abducted Corporal Gilad Shalit after its foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, visited the region.

"We have a certain hope that these efforts may lead to a result in the foreseeable future," Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger told a government news conference, praising the role of Egypt and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Germany has said it will constructively use its contacts in the region in order to seek a solution to the current crisis, but that it does not see itself in the role of broker.

Speculation has been rife because of the past role of its foreign intelligence service in arranging prisoner swaps between Israel and Hizbullah.

"We are not actually brokering, we are putting our efforts in line with the efforts of other international states," Jaeger said. "The strength of the European countries is that they have different forms of access, and we are trying to use ours."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya called Monday on the United States to pressure Israel to stop its nearly month-old offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"All that we ask the American administration is to take a moral stance toward the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian suffering and to bear its responsibility as a superpower in this world," he told The Associated Press in an interview. He called on America "to restrain the Israeli aggression and stop it."
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Earlier on Monday, the Islamic Jihad militant group said it fired the two rockets at the coastal city of Ashkelon to mark a visit to the region by "the Zionist Condoleezza Rice," the US secretary of state.

Palestinians are planning a general strike and "a day of rage" in Gaza on Tuesday to protest the Rice visit, said Omar Assaf, a member of a committee that coordinates joint actions by Palestinian political groups in Gaza and the West Bank. Rice is "not welcome," Assaf said in a telephone interview Monday with the Associated Press. "She is responsible for the killing of children in Lebanon and Gaza. She, her administration, and her policies are not welcome here." Assaf urged shops in Gaza City to close during the protest.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokes-man for Hamas, said, "We will participate in the strike."

"Rice's visit is not welcome," he said in an interview.

"It comes in the context of American domination aimed at reorganizing the region to reflect Israeli interests."

An Israeli Army spokeswoman said artillery rounds were fired on Monday at Palestinian militants launching Qassam rockets into Israel from heavily populated civilian areas in northern Gaza.

Overnight, Israel bombed buildings the army claimed were being used by militants to make rockets. The army said it warned residents to leave the buildings before the air strikes to try to avoid civilian casualties.

One of the targeted warehouses was being used by Islamic Jihad to manufacture and store missiles and ammunition, the Israeli Army said. Palestinian sources confirmed the owner of the house was an Islamic Jihad member. - Agencies