The Islamic Jihad (Holy War) claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a deadly rocket attack on southern Israel, which killed two Israeli Bedouins, Israel Radio reported.

Jihad declared that the rocket attack was aimed to disrupt Israel's general elections, which started on early Tuesday morning, according to the report.

Two Israeli Bedouins, apparently a father and son, were killed in a big explosion in an open field between the border community of Nahal Oz and the Karni crossing on the Gaza-Israel border late Tuesday morning.

The Israeli army was currently carrying out an investigation into the incident, suspecting that the rocket might not be fired into Israel on Tuesday, but had been lying in the field and exploded later, local newspaper the Jerusalem Post reported.

The army said that three rockets were launched earlier in the day by Palestinian militants from the northern Gaza Strip at Israel, landing south of Ashkelon city. No casualties or damages were reported.

Earlier on Tuesday,Israeli troops shot dead a Jihad member near the West Bank town of Jenin.

Tuesday's violence came as Israelis were heading to the polls in a key parliamentary election, expected to set a new tone of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

Israeli police and security forces have been on high alert against any possible attacks on the election day, beefing up deployment and declaring an emergency status one hour before the polls opened at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT).

Israeli security services said that they had received some 90 warnings of attack attempts by Jewish extremists and Palestinian militants in a bid to disrupt the elections.

Around 22,000 policemen were deployed in Israeli cities and Jerusalem and the army tightened the closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, closing all crossings to travel of Palestinians between Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Source: Xinhua