Three Palestinians were killed on Tuesday in an explosion in a house in the town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip, medical sources said.

Spokesman for the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, Ashraf al-Qedra, told reporters that three were killed and five others critically injured in the blast.

Local media outlets reported that the three were suspected militants and were killed allegedly in a bomb-making accident.

According to the reports, the suspected militants were former members of Hamas military wing, Izz al-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, before they recently joined a radical Salafi group.

However, officials did not confirm the victims identities or the cause of the blast.

Meanwhile, an Israeli army spokeswoman told Xinhua that the Israeli military has no connection with the explosion.

"Our troops did not have any activities in the area of the blast," she said. 

The explosion came just a few hours after an Israeli airstrike killed three suspected Islamic Jihad militants in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.

The army said the strike targeted militants who fired mortars at Israeli forces near border with Gaza. But the Islamic Jihad movement said the fighters were killed during clashes with an Israeli force that advanced into Rafah City.

Earlier in the day, Hamas armed wing said it had seized an Israeli drone that crashed near the Gaza-Israel border fence. Israel confirmed that one of its drones fell down inside Gaza early on Tuesday.

The coastal enclave is witnessing an escalation of violence between Gazan militants and Israel, raising fears that the fragile, Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Hamas and Israel could collapse.

Source: ANTARA