Soldiers opened fire and shot dead two armed Palestinians who were attempting to place explosives near the border fence separating the impoverished territory from Israel, the army said.
Palestinian medics said the army had informed them it had the bodies of two Palestinians, but had not yet received them.
Earlier, an Israeli air raid killed a Hamas militant and wounded four others in northern Gaza, medics and the group said.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said an air raid had been carried out against a group that had fired mortars into Israel.
The latest deaths bring to 5,939 the number of people killed since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP count.
