Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinians on Sunday for attempting to infiltrate Israel from the Gaza Strip. Gazas health ministry identified two of the dead as Bahaa Rahman Qudeih, 23, and Mohammed Abu Rayda, 20. A name had not yet been provided for the third person. The army said four people "attempted to infiltrate" by breaking through the security fence, said the military in a statement. "Troops arrived at the scene and fired shots towards the terrorists, as a result of which three were killed," an army statement said. It added that a bag was found with cutters, an axe and other materials. The latest deaths raised to 52 the toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since protests and clashes began along the Gaza border on March 30. Hundreds more have been wounded by gunfire. Demonstrators are demanding Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to the homes they fled or were expelled from during the 1948 war surrounding Israels creation. Israel argues allowing the so-called right of return would effectively spell the end of the country as a Jewish state. No Israelis have been hurt in the weeks of protests and the military has faced international criticism for its use of live ammunition. It says it only opens fire when necessary to stop infiltrations, attacks and attempts to damage the fence. It accuses Hamas of seeking to use the protests as cover to carry out violence. Overnight Israel struck a facility belonging to Hamas in reaction to kite-borne fire bombings, which have reportedly caused significant damage to Israeli fields. A statement from Hamas’ armed wing called the incident a “deplorable Zionist crime” perpetrated against its fighters. “During a complicated security and intelligence operation conducted by Qassam Brigades to investigate a serious and a grave security incident conducted by the Zionist enemy against Palestinian resistance, a deplorable crime took place against our Mujahideen in the area of Zawayda in central Gaza Strip,” it said. Reuters television captured a pillar of smoke rising above the village of Zawayda near the coast of Gaza, far from the border with Israel where tensions have escalated in recent weeks. The exact circumstances of the blast were unclear and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, provided no further details. A military spokeswoman said it was a direct response to a new Palestinian tactic of flying kites with firebombs attached across the Gaza border into Israel to set farmers fields alight. "Last night an aircraft struck a terror post belonging to the Hamas terror organization adjacent to the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip," a spokeswoman told AFP, without describing the target. "The strike was in response to an incident that took place yesterday in which terrorists launched burning incendiaries in an attempt to light fires in Israeli territory," the Israeli spokeswoman said. Israeli media have in recent days reported significant damage to farms due to kite-flown Molotov cocktails, though the devices face difficult odds in making it across the fence while staying alight. The Israeli military spokeswoman made a point of adding that the latest strike had no connection to a so-far unexplained explosion in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday which killed six Hamas fighters.