Men wearing diving suits were on their way to carry out an attack in Israel, claims military spokesman

This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

At least four Palestinians were killed when Israeli navy commandos opened fire on what they said was a squad of militants in diving suits off the coast of Gaza today.

The Palestinians "were on their way to carry out an attack in Israel", a military spokesman said.

The spokesman declined to give any further details about how the military had identified the men or what they had been doing in the sea.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant offshoot of Fatah, said the men killed were members of its marine unit and had been training. One Palestinian was missing, and there were no Israeli casualties.

The attack follows a week in which the Israeli navy has faced international criticism for its assault on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship in a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, in which nine activists were killed.

An anonymous military official told Israel's army radio yesterday: "This will be a shot in the arm for the commandos after the hard week they have been through."

Today's incident was followed by an air strike on what the military spokesman described as "terrorists trying to fire rockets into Israel" from the northern Gaza Strip.

He could not confirm casualties, although at least one Palestinian was believed to have been seriously injured.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said: "The bloody escalation today is a desperate attempt by the occupation government to divert the world attention away from the massacre committed against the flotilla."

Israel today released a list of five passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara whom it accused of having links with al-Qaida, Hamas and other militant organisations.

A statement from the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) named Ken O'Keefe, who it said was a US and British citizen, as a "radical anti-Israel activist and operative of the Hamas terror organisation".

"He attempted to enter the Gaza Strip in order to form and train a commando unit for the Palestinian terror organisation," the statement said.

The British Foreign Office said O'Keefe did not have UK citizenship, while his website says he renounced his US citizenship on 1 March 2001.

O'Keefe, due to be deported to Ireland by Israel after attempting to reach Gaza on the Mavi Marmara, rejected the charges as "slanderous".

The IDF said the other passengers with alleged terrorist links were Fatimah Mahmadi, a US resident; two Turkish citizens, Hassan Iynasi and Hussein Urosh; and a French citizen, Ahmad Ummimon.

According to Israeli media reports, the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has held at least half a dozen telephone conversations with world leaders over the past few days. He has faced intense pressure to agree to an international commission of inquiry into the assault on the aid flotilla.

The Israeli government is keen to deflect an international investigation, preferring an internal inquiry, possibly with limited US representation.