Five Palestinians were killed and four were injured during two Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip late Friday and early Saturday, Palestinian medical sources and Hamas have said. The medical sources said four other Hamas security men were wounded in the Israeli airstrikes on Hamas outposts in the southern Gaza towns of Rafah and Khan Younis.

An Israelu army spokeswoman said the airstrikes were in response to continued cross-border attacks.

Meanwhile, exiled Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal on Friday urged Egypt and Arab states to take a decision in order to break the siege and open Rafah crossing border. Speaking at a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus to mark the "Naqba" or catastrophe of Israel's creation 60 years ago, Mashaal threatened that his resistance movement would capture Israelis if Tel Aviv does not release tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners.

"If our enemies don't set free our prisoners held in the Israeli jails, Gilad Shalit will not be the last" to be captured, he said of the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinian activists in 2006. There are "11,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails," Mashaal conveyed.

Mashaal has repeatedly said that Shalit will not be released unless Israel frees Palestinian prisoners. Mashaal added he will give Israel a chance to accept a state based on the Palestinian state's borders. "There is an opportunity," he said. "A Palestinian and Arab position that accepts a state based on the 1967 borders including Jerusalem, the returning right and without settlements or exchanging territories."

Mashaal noted that if the Israeli side refuses this proposal Arab states should takes steps to pressurize Israel. "If Israel refuses this Egyptian effort concerning the calm according to the criteria offered by the Palestinian forces, I call Egypt and Arab states to take a decision in order to break the siege and open Rafah crossing point from one side," he said.

© 2008 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)