A failed Israeli airstrike Tuesday against a car carrying militants along a main road in Gaza City killed nine Palestinians, including two schoolchildren, Palestinian hospital officials said.

Palestinian police stand next to burned documents just outside the parliament building in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Tuesday, June 13, 2006. The damage was caused late Monday when scores of Palestinian security men loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas went on a rampage against the Hamas-led government, riddling the parliament building and Cabinet offices with bullets before setting them ablaze in retaliation for an attack by Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip.[AP]

The Israeli military said the militants were on a mission to launch rockets at southern Israel. Palestinian witnesses said two missiles were fired, but they missed the car. The second missile came two minutes after the first, when a crowd had begun to gather around the scene of the attack, witnesses said.

Israel-Palestinian violence has escalated since an explosion on a Gaza beach Friday killed eight civilians. Palestinians have blamed the deaths on an Israeli artillery round. Israeli military officials said Tuesday the military's investigation shows the deaths likely were caused by a mine planted by militants from the Palestinians' ruling Hamas party.

Seven of those killed Tuesday in Gaza City were civilians, hospital officials said, and Islamic Jihad said the other two belonged to the ranks of its militant group.

Seventeen Palestinians were injured in the strike, three of them seriously. Gaza's Shifa hospital was overwhelmed by the large number of casualties, and some were being treated on the bloodied floor.

At the hospital's morgue, where the bodies were brought, angry women shouted, "Death to Israel, Death to the occupation!"

An explosion was heard minutes after the Gaza City strike in the nearby town of Jebaliya. Palestinians said Israel had carried out another airstrike, but the Israeli army said it did not operate there, and no casualties were immediately reported.