Israeli occupation forces killed two "armed" Palestinians as they approached the northern border barrier of the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said on Thursday.

A statement from the Israeli military said that its forces "indentified a number of armed Palestinians" near the security barrier in the northern Gaza Strip.

The statement claimed that the two Palestinians, affiliated with the Islamic Jihad Movement, were planning a "terror attack". Israeli military used tanks and air power to take down the two individuals.   

On Tuesday, five Palestinians were injured in Israeli army attacks on the Gaza border.

Israeli forces opened gunfire on the Palestinian labourers while scrounging for construction material in the rubble near Gaza's northern border with Israel, Palestinian medics said.

But the Israeli military said it had opened fire on three Palestinians approaching the border barrier after they did not respond to warning shots.

A spokesman for the Hamas-run medical services in the Gaza Strip, Adham Abu Selmiya, said five Gazans in their early twenties were shot as they scavenged for building material in Beit Lahiya along the border with Israel.

An Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip bans the import of almost all building materials, forcing Gazans to recycle the remnants of destroyed structures to rebuild homes, schools and businesses.

The Israeli blockade was imposed after the 2006 kidnap of soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas.