GAZA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Eight Palestinians were killed and six wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a militants car in southern Gaza and in an artillery shelling on the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, medics and witnesses said.

    Witnesses in Zeitoon neighborhood in Gaza City said they heard two huge successive explosions, which were a result of an Israeli aircraft striking by two rockets a local jeep was mobilizing four militants.

    They testified as saying that flames of fire and smokes were seen coming out from the targeted car, adding that dozens of people arrived at the scene, where ambulances that were called to the place evacuated the four.

    Shifa Hospital in Gaza City confirmed that four dead people arrived at the hospital, adding that three more bystanders were injured and they are receiving treatment at the same hospital.

    Reports said they are members of a group called the Army of Islam, among them the group's spokesman Khatab Maqdisi.

    The group was responsible for the abduction of the BBC reporter in Gaza Alan Johnston, and also it shares the abduction of the Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit with Hamas movement and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).

    Meanwhile, another four Palestinian militants were killed and three other civilians wounded on Wednesday evening when an Israeli tank fired one artillery shell at the town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip.

    A hospital source said that four people were killed, and three other civilians wounded and the three wounded are in critical conditions.

    Witnesses said that in the early afternoon, that at least 40 Israeli army tanks, bulldozers, armored vehicles and personnel carries rolled into the entrance of the town amid intensive gunfire.

    The Israeli army incursion into the town, according to witnesses, came shortly after several Palestinian armed groups claimed responsibility for firing homemade rockets at the Israeli town of Sderout.

    Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted by Israeli media on Wednesday as saying that a large-scale operation against the Gaza Strip is becoming necessary and should be carried out very soon.