Israeli tanks withdraw from Gaza

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Israeli forces have withdrawn from Gaza after air and ground operations which left at least eight Palestinians dead.

Tanks entered central Gaza on Friday and exchanged fire with militants in the fiercest day's fighting for weeks.

The incursion came after Palestinian militants killed two Israelis at the Nahal Oz fuel terminal on Wednesday.

The head of Gaza's main power plant has warned it will have to halt electricity supplies to some 500,000 people unless Israel resumes fuel shipments there.

Rafiq Maliha said he only had two to three days worth of fuel left to run the plant, which generates about a third of the coastal territory's electricity.

The European Union, which provides fuel to the plant, said it was waiting for approval from the Israeli authorities, who cut supplies after Wednesday's attack.

Civilian casualties

Palestinian witnesses reported seeing several Israeli tanks rolling out of central Gaza, near the Bureij refugee camp, before dawn on Saturday.

The Israeli military later confirmed the operation, which some believed signalled the start of a major offensive, had ended at about 0400 (0100 GMT).

The day's violence started in the early hours of Friday morning when Israeli aircraft killed two militants near the southern town of Khan Younis, Hamas said.

Later, Israel tanks and bulldozers advanced about one kilometre (0.6 miles) over the Israel-Gaza border near Bureij, drawing heavy fire from local militants armed with anti-tank missiles, mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades.

Two Palestinian boys aged 12 and 13, two 17-year-old teenagers, and a 19-year-old were killed by air strikes and tank fire in the area, Palestinian medics said.

More than a dozen other people were injured. There were no Israeli casualties.

An Israeli air strike overnight killed a Hamas militant in central Gaza.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has vowed to strike at the Islamist movement so that it will be "no longer able to act against Israeli citizens".

Mr Olmert said Israel would pursue a dual policy of hitting Hamas and "serious and responsible negotiations that can lead us to agreements" with the rival Fatah movement, led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas seized control of Gaza last June after routing Fatah. Mr Abbas now heads a Western-backed administration in the West Bank.