GAZA CITY, 29 July 2007 — Israeli troops gunned down two Palestinian fighters yesterday as they tried to launch an attack on the Jewish state from the Gaza Strip.

A spokesman for Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Marytrs Brigades said the thwarted attack was meant to send a signal that the group had no intention of abiding by the platform of President Mahmoud Abbas’ new government in the occupied West Bank.

Led by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the new government dropped the phrase “armed resistance” from its platform on Friday, angering Hamas and other fighters in Gaza. Abbas lost control of the coastal strip last month when Hamas routed his secular Fatah forces. Abbas responded by sacking the Hamas-led government and appointing Fayyad’s.

“Our message is that the Zionist occupation is continuing its aggression and therefore the resistance will continue,” said Abu Taher, a spokesman for the Al-Aqsa Marytrs Brigades in Gaza.

“We tell Fayyad that his platform is a political platform. Palestine was occupied militarily and we will liberate it militarily,” the spokesman added. A statement issued by Islamic Jihad said: “If Fayyad rejects the option of resistance, he should pick another people to represent.”

The Israeli Army said its soldiers opened fire on the two Al-Aqsa fighters near the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya and identified hitting them.

“They were planting an explosive device near the fence,” an army spokeswoman said. Al-Aqsa said the two fighters were trying to plant bombs and fire mortars into Israel. Israeli troops often shoot at Palestinians who approach the Gaza border with Israel to try to prevent armed infiltrations. Israel also conducts raids in the area to try to stop fighters from launching rockets and mortars into Israel.

In a bid to bolster Abbas, Israel has recently renewed a measure of security cooperation with his forces in the West Bank, agreed to stop pursuing some 180 wanted Fatah fighters and released 255 Palestinian prisoners from its jails.

Meanwhile, under a deal between Israel, Egypt and Fayyad’s government, thousands of Palestinians who have been stranded in Egypt since Hamas’ takeover on June 14 will be allowed back into Gaza starting next week, Palestinian officials said yesterday.

A Palestinian source familiar with the deal said the Palestinians would start crossing the border in stages starting as early as today. They will cross from Egypt into Israel and then enter into Gaza.

Israel Radio reported that an initial party of 100 people would be allowed to return today with the rest to follow later.

In the West Bank, Fatah-allied security forces broke up the funeral of a Hamas loyalist yesterday, as part of a crackdown on the fighters there after they violently wrested control of Gaza.

In another development, the Hamas government in Gaza will begin paying salaries to thousands of supporters in the civil service, challenging the rival Cabinet of moderates in the West Bank that had cut Hamas sympathizers from the payroll.

Hamas’ payment of the salaries would further cement its rule over impoverished Gaza, where unemployment is about 40 percent and most of the 1.4 million people receive foreign food handouts. The money will go to thousands of members of Hamas’ Executive Force, a Hamas militia policing Gaza, and those civil servants who refused an order by Fayyad not to cooperate with the Islamic group.

In all, Abbas’ Palestinian Authority employs about 165,000 people, half of them members of the Fatah-allied security forces. Ala Al-Batta, head of a Hamas-run civil servants’ union in Gaza, told a local news radio yesterday that more than 10,000 government workers will receive their salaries from Hamas.

Hamas officials said payments will begin today. The salaries of civil servants provide for about one-third of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

During a year of Hamas rule, following the group’s election victory in January 2006, civil servants were only paid sporadically because of an international aid boycott, prompting a further downturn in the battered Palestinian economy.

For income, Hamas has relied largely on aid from sympathetic governments and on donations sent to its charities in Gaza.

— With input from agencies