Hamas militants shot dead seven Palestinians on Friday in front of the al-Omari Mosque, witnesses and Hamas media reported. Earlier in the day, 11 others alleged to have worked with the Israeli military were killed by a firing squad at a Gaza City police station, according to Hamas security officials.

Quoted by news agency Associated Press, the Hamas-run website Al Rai warned that "the same punishment will be imposed soon on others," adding that "the current circumstances forced us to take such decisions."

The executions come a day after Israel killed three Hamas military leaders - identified as Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhoum - in an airstrike on a family home near Rafah in southern Gaza.

Hopes for truce fade

On Friday, Israel launched more than 20 airstrikes at Gaza, killing at least four people. Meanwhile, Israel reported two injuries from Hamas rocket fire out of Gaza, after Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at brokering a lasting truce collapsed earlier this week. Thus far, there is no sign the parties will be returning to the negotiating table.

The United Nations has renewed calls for a long-term ceasefire, and Germany, France and Britain have circulated a draft resolution at the Security Council in a bid to end the conflict.

The document proposes an immediate and sustainable ceasefire, the establishment of a UN monitoring mission in Gaza, and the lifting of the Israeli blockade. It also calls for the lifting of economic and humanitarian restrictions on Gaza to allow for a reconstruction effort.

Unnamed diplomats cited by news agencies said the US, Israel's main ally with veto rights at the UN Security Council, supported the European effort to produce a resolution to secure peace.

"This is not a competition," said an American diplomat in Washington. "We share with other Security Council members a concern over the return to hostilities following the breach of the Egyptian-brokered humanitarian ceasefire."

More than 2,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since Israel launched its offensive on Gaza on July 8. Sixty-seven Israelis, most of them soldiers, have been killed.

nm/msh (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)