Israeli missile hits deputy's house

Gaza/Geneva: An Israeli missile hit the Gaza Strip home of a well known woman lawmaker from the governing Islamist group Hamas yesterday in what the army said was an attack on a weapons factory.

Israeli forces also shot dead two Palestinians in separate incidents at the border with Gaza and in the occupied West Bank. Residents said the man killed in the raid on the city of Nablus was a civilian. The army said he was planting a bomb.

There were no reports of casualties in the strike in Gaza on the building of Mariam Farhat, better known as Umm Nidal, who has often voiced pride at the death of three of her six sons during a Palestinian uprising.

In Geneva, UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said yesterday the Gaza Strip is on the brink of a "social explosion" that could drive it even deeper into violence.

Egeland said the on-off closure of the Palestinian territory by Israeli authorities due to security concerns was stifling the livelihoods of about 1.5 million mainly young people who live there.

"We are particularly concerned by the situation in Gaza, which is by all accounts a ticking time bomb," the UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs told journalists.

"When I call it a time bomb, it means that sooner or later there will be a social explosion which is even worse than the one we have today," he added.