"Three of the individuals who were wounded in the incident were taken to hospital in Israel," according to the army, who added that no IDF troops were hurt in the firefight.

Army radio said that four of the infiltrators were Bedouin smugglers, one of whom managed to recross the border into Egypt, before the army closed on the group.

The army has sharply increased patrols and electronic monitoring along the 240-km desert border that stretches from Eilat in the south to Gaza along the Mediterranean coast, due to a spike in security events and increased infiltration attempts.

"The smuggling routes along the Israel-Egypt border are constantly being used by terror organizations to execute terrorist attacks against the citizens of Israel and IDF soldiers," the IDF spokesman said at a recent press conference.

"Refugees from Egypt are used by terror cells in the Sinai Peninsula (area in north Egypt) which are organized and financed by Hamas in Gaza," a senior Israeli army official said at the on- site briefing to the foreign press alongside a segment of the fence where an explosive device was uncovered in March.

The army is concerned that Bedouin smugglers will eventually manage to breach the metal security barrier currently under construction along the border.

The official noted that most of the infiltrations into Israel are either being carried out or supported by Bedouin tribes in Israel and Egypt.

The Israeli government in January 2010 approved the construction of a 240-km, 1.5-billion-shekel (about 400 million U. S. dollars) steel fence, and intended to thwart infiltrators, including job-seeking refugees, smugglers or hostile cross-border attackers.

More than 100 kilometers of the barrier is already up, and officials expect to finish the work by the end of the year.

In August 2011, militants killed eight Israeli motorists and wounded 30 others in a cross-border attack along a nearby road. The army has since then deployed some of its crack infantry units to patrol the region and upped the number of early-warning installations.