Israeli shell aimed at Palestinian militants decapitates girl of six playing in her back garden

The Israeli military said troops had opened fire at a group of men preparing to launch rockets into Israel. A spokesman added that  it was unaware of any Palestinian civilian casualties.

Gaza's Hamas rulers reported that one of their gunmen was killed in the ongoing Israeli operation in the area.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, a Gaza Health Ministry official, identified the dead girl as Hadeel al-Smari and said two adult relatives living in her family's compound near the Israeli border were wounded in the attack.

Grief: A Palestinian boy cries at the funeral of a militant yesterday

TV footage showed that the girl's head had been blown off. Hadeel's cousin, Ahmad al-Smari, said the girl was in her back garden when a shell struck.

'I am sure that she was up because no one can sleep day or night because of the army fire and clashes near our homes,' he said in a telephone interview from the hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

Militants fire at Israel from the border area where the family lives, but civilians suffer from the Israeli reprisals, he said.

'Our lives are hell. We cannot sleep or enjoy peace in our houses because of the army fire,' he explained.

Israeli military officials say Palestinian militants endanger civilians by using the cover of crowded residential areas to launch attacks.

Rocket attack: Members of the military wing of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees take position in the early hours of yesterday morning

The violence in Gaza has flared as Israel's top leadership holds a series of meetings on whether to pursue a truce with Hamas or launch a bruising military operation against it.

Four Israeli civilians have been killed this year, ratcheting up pressure on Israel's leadership to do something about the near-daily rocket and mortar assaults.

Militants have been bombarding southern Israel with rockets and mortars for seven years, increasing their rate of fire after Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of Gaza in 2005.

Israel's military insists it has limited its reprisals to pinpoint attacks, over fears a broad military campaign would result in heavy casualties.

There are also concerns a Gaza invasion would jeopardize Cpl. Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas has been holding for two years.

Gaza's ruling faction hopes to trade the 21-year-old tank crewman, who was captured in a cross-border raid, for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.