IDF inside Gaza

      Eight Palestinian militants were killed and four Israel Defense Forces soldiers were lightly wounded in separate IDF operations across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. Dozens of IDF tanks and armored vehicles moved into Gaza on Tuesday morning, setting off clashes with Palestinian militants firing rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds. An Israeli tank shell fired at a group of Islamic Jihad terrorists killed three, while missiles fired from an aircraft killed two unidentified gunmen, hospital officials said. Terrorists carrying land mines and other weapons dodged among houses and maneuvered behind the tanks to fire at troops. Others took cover behind trees, or covered themselves in leaves to camouflage themselves in open farmlands in the area of the fighting. Tanks and bulldozers were about 1.5 kilometers deep inside southern Gaza, on the main road between the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah, and deployed over a 4-kilometer-long stretch of territory. Earlier, an RPG anti-tank missile was fired at a tank, lightly wounding four soldiers.(12,30) Soldiers took over the rooftops of several homes and arrested about 60 people in house-to-house arrest raids, residents said. Israel Air Force planes providing cover killed three unidentified militants, soon after three Islamic Jihad militants were killed by an IDF tank shell. Four soldiers were lightly wounded after an anti-tank missile was fired at their vehicle, and were evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva. The missile set fire to the tank, but army officials said it would continue to operate.