JERUSALEM -- The bodies of two more Palestinians, whom the Israeli navy shot dead at sea, washed up on the Gaza Strip's shore Tuesday, bringing the death toll from the incident to six.
On Monday, the Israeli navy fired on a group of Palestinians in wet suits who the Israeli military alleged were en route to carry out an attack inside Israel.
The divers were members of a violent affiliate of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, known as the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a spokesman for one of the brigade divisions said. The spokesman for the group's Palestine division said the divers were on a training mission, unarmed and operating in shallow waters 250 meters from the Gaza coastline.
The Israeli military, in a brief statement, said its forces had fired upon "a squad of terrorists wearing diving suits on their way to execute a terror attack." The statement did not provide specifics of what was planned or say whether the divers had weapons.
The incident comes as Israel remains under international pressure to lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip after the May 31 interception of an aid flotilla by the Israeli military in an operation that left nine activists dead. One of the dead was a U.S. citizen of Turkish descent, and the rest were citizens of Turkey, which has denounced the raid and responded by further distancing itself from Israel, a longtime ally.
The raid on the flotilla has drawn widespread criticism