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GAZA, March 15 (Reuters) - Israel's air force killed three Palestinian militants with a missile strike in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, hospital officials said.

They identified the dead men as members of an Islamic Jihad rocket crew.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the air force attacked armed Palestinians.

An earlier air strike wounded three Islamic Jihad militants.

Israel and Islamic Jihad have been exchanging fire since Thursday, when the faction abandoned a week-old moratorium on cross-border rocket salvoes in response to the killing of four of its members by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

The violence has challenged Egyptian efforts to broker a Gaza ceasefire. Hamas, another Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, has continued to hold its fire. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Writing by Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Mary Gabriel)

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