"We have seen an acceleration of attempts (by militants) to strike at very specific targetted points," Brigadier General Ruth Yaron said, referring to the Erez crossing point and the neighbouring Israeli-Palestinian business park.

"Terror organisations are aiming specifically at the points where you have Israelis and Palestinians meeting," she told reporters at a meeting here of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem.

The increase of attacks in the area, which Yaron said had killed some 14 people in the past few months, raised serious questions about the future of the Israeli-Palestinian industrial park.

"Due to the terrible damage that the Erez industrial zone has suffered, there are serious question marks over whether we will be able to open it again and go back to the same level of economic activity as before," she said, without giving further details.

The industrial zone has been closed since mid-April when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at the crossing, killing an Israeli soldier and wounding three others.

Since the start of the year, Erez had been hit by a wave of attacks by militant groups.

In January, a woman suicide bomber belonging to the radical Hamas movement blew herself up at the crossing point, killing four Israelis.

A month later, an Israeli soldier was killed and two others injured when Palestinian gunmen ambushed them inside the Erez industrial zone.

Four Palestinians died in early March during an abortive double car bombing targetting soldiers at the crossing.

Around 5,000 Palestinian workers are employed at the industrial zone, which lies on a strip of land between Israel and Gaza and comprises more than 200 Israeli and Palestinian businesses.

Yaron also said militant groups were also exploiting the Karni industrial crossing and its neighbouring commercial zone, at which some 900 Palestinians are employed.

She noted that the two Palestinian teenagers who carried out a suicide bombing at the southern port of Ashdod in March, which killed 10, had infiltrated Israel through the Karni crossing in a false-bottomed container.

Troops operating at Karni's industrial park, which lies just south of Gaza City, had uncovered two suicide belts there "in the last few days", she said.

Yaron's concerns about the future of the Erez industrial zone were echoed by another senior military officer.

"The damage done to the industrial park in Gaza raises serious questions about whether we will be able to continue, not only with this industrial park but with other future economic possibilities for the Palestinians," the officer said on condition of anonymity.

"If places like the Erez industrial zone are closed, what is the alternative for the Palestinians?"

A third, smaller commercial zone, known as the Sufa industrial park, is situated in southern Gaza, some 10 kilometres (six miles) east of Rafah, on the Egyptian border.

Located next to the Sufa crossing point into Israel, it provides work for some 100 Palestinians employees, an army spokesman said. The army had initially said the business park employed a similar number to Erez.

Unlike Erez, the Sufa crossing and industrial park have not been hit by any attacks.

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