GAZA, October 27 (RIA Novosti) - Two militants from the radical armed Palestinian organization Salah ad-Din Brigade were killed on Tuesday in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza.

"Ahmad Abu Darb and Ibrahim Qatasha died while they were implementing a jihadi mission" without explaining the nature of this mission, Ma'an news agency reported a spokesman for the An-Nasser Salah Ad-Din Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, as saying.

A Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman said that the bodies of two burned men who died in a fire in a residential apartment block were taken to Abu Yousef An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah. Rescuers said the fire might have been caused by an explosion.

It was not immediately clear if the explosion was related to the deaths of the two fighters.

The Gaza Strip has been the subject of an almost continuous Israeli blockade since radical Islamic group Hamas took control of the enclave in the summer of 2007, ousting President Abbas's Fatah movement in a bloody five-day war.

Unlike the Army of Allah, Hamas bills itself as a more pragmatic political force seeking a Palestinian statehood, rather than a global jihad.