GAZA CITY (AFP) - Seven Palestinians and two Israeli civilians were killed on Wednesday in an explosion of violence around the Gaza Strip border after Palestinian commandos stormed into Israel. The attack came after an early morning gunbattle left an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian gunman dead, shattering a month-long lull that followed a bloody Israeli blitz on Gaza aimed at halting rocket fire. The dead Palestinians included both fighters and civilians, one of them a teenage boy. The Israeli army claimed Palestinian fighters breached the border near the Nahal Oz fuel terminal, which provides Gaza with its fuel supplies, and moved into Israel under the cover of a barrage of 15 mortar rounds. The fighters killed two Israeli civilians in their 30s, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service, in what the army called a "failed abduction attempt". A military official alleged that fighters opened fire at short range at the two Israelis who were working at the terminal, located east of Gaza City. Islamic Jihad and two smaller groups claimed responsibility. The army said two Gaza fighters were killed at the border, and a senior military official said the two were hit by tank fire as they fled back to Gaza. Another airstrike aimed at fighters fleeing the border battle hit a vehicle carrying Islamic Jihad members, injuring three. Later, an Israeli airstrike near a petrol station in Gaza City killed a Palestinian activist and a civilian, medics said. Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza through Nahal Oz after the assault, and three Palestinian civilians were killed, including a 15-year-old boy, when an artillery round slammed into a nearby house, medics said. Another three people were wounded, including a teenage girl, they said. Israel swiftly blamed Hamas, the Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza since routing forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June. "Hamas clearly controls the Gaza Strip. They are directly responsible for this attack and we will hold them accountable," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev told AFP. Cairo was also on high alert after Hamas threatened a repeat of a breach of the border between Gaza and Egypt in January that allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flood into the Sinai peninsula. Wednesday's attack was claimed by Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, and the Mujahideen, a little-known group which claimed to be linked to Abbas's Fatah party. Spokesmen from Islamic Jihad and the PRC said the operation was aimed at seizing Israeli soldiers. "This martyrdom operation followed the operation in which we killed a soldier at Khan Yunis and it will be followed by other operations to respond to Israeli aggressions and crimes," said Abu Ahmed, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad. A gunbattle had erupted before dawn on Wednesday near the border fence east of the southern town of Khan Yunis, killing an Israeli soldier and a Hamas member.