The militants struck while troops and tanks backed by helicopters stormed a neighbourhood of Gaza City yesterday, killing six Palestinians, including at least three gunmen, and wounding more than 100.

Israel responded to the bloody ambush within hours with a missile strike on a car in another part of the densely populated city. Medics said an 18-year-old was killed and five people were wounded. Their identities were not immediately known.

The fresh cycle of violence followed a May 2 vote by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's rightist Likud party against his plan to pull out of Gaza, where 7,500 Jews live in settlements amid 1.2 million Palestinians on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The armoured troop carrier -- loaded with explosives for demolishing weapons workshops, a key target in the raid -- ran over a powerful, improvised mine and was "blown to pieces", a senior military official said.

It erupted in a massive orange fireball that mushroomed above buildings in the Zeitoun district, a Hamas stronghold that lies north of the heavily guarded Jewish settlement of Netzarim.