Israel killed a top Hamas commander on Thursday in the biggest blow yet against the Islamist leadership as dozens more air strikes on Gaza took the death toll from the six-day blitz above 400.
With Israeli tanks and troops massed around the Palestinian enclave for a threatened ground offensive, Hamas fired more rockets deep into Israeli territory and international efforts to secure a ceasefire floundered.
Israel staged more than 40 attacks using warplanes, drones and naval artillery from ships based off the Gaza coast, the military said.
Two fighter jets fired missiles on the home of Nizar Rayan, one of the top 10 Hamas leaders, killing him, his four wives and two daughters, aged seven and 10, witnesses and medical sources said.
Rayan, a firebrand orator, had lambasted Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas and called for suicide attacks on Israel during televised speeches and at rallies.
He was the most senior Hamas leader killed since Israel launched “Operation Cast Lead” which has now left 414 Palestinians dead and more than 2,100 wounded. Rockets fired from Gaza have killed four people and wounded dozens in Israel.
The latest Israeli strikes also hit the parliament and justice ministry in the main Hamas government complex, rocket launching sites and tunnels used to smuggle weapons and supplies into the territory that Israel has kept virtually sealed since Hamas seized control in June 2007.
Hundreds of houses have been destroyed and the United Nations says scores of the dead are civilians. Food, fuel and medical supplies are all running short, according to aid agencies.
Israel started the strikes on Saturday in response to rocket fire by Hamas and its militant allies.
Israel has demanded that the rocket fire end as a condition for a ceasefire but more than 30 were fired on Thursday, without causing new casualties, the military said.
One missile slammed into an apartment block in the port of Ashdod more than 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Gaza border, the army said, adding that a warplane attacked the squad that launched the missile.
Two rockets fell near the desert city of Beersheva, 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the border — the deepest the rockets have reached inside Israel.
Hamas’s armed wing said it fired three rockets at the Hatzerim air force base west of Beersheva. The Israeli army did not comment.
Hamas has fired more than 280 rockets since Saturday, according to Israel.
On the diplomatic front, Hamas said for the first time that it would accept an EU ceasefire proposal — if Israel met conditions including ending a blockade of Gaza and reopening all border crossings.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni held talks in Paris with President Nicolas Sarkozy and other French leaders. Israel on Wednesday rejected a French proposal for a 48 hour ceasefire to help humanitarian efforts.
Peace efforts were also stalled at the UN Security Council even though UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the conflict had become “a dramatic crisis”.
UN The civilian population in Gaza and stability throughout the Middle East “all are trapped between the irresponsibility displayed in the indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas militants and the disproportionality of the continuing Israeli military operation,” Ban said.
Libya presented a draft resolution drawn up by the Arab League to the UN Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire.
But the United States and Britain said it appeared biased because it did not mention the Hamas rocket attacks.
Israel has massed tanks and thousands of troops around Gaza and Defence Minister Ehud Barak has warned of a ground assault to accompany the air raids.
Olmert said on a visit to Beersheva that Israel is “not interested in conducting a long war and we do not wish to conduct a war on a broad front.”
He added however: “We will deal with Hamas and terror with an iron fist.”
In a defiant televised speech late Wednesday, Hamas government chief Ismail Haniya vowed Israel would be defeated. “Our people will defeat those tanks,” he said.
Amid fears of a mounting humanitarian crisis, the UN Relief and Works Agency made an emergency appeal for 34 million dollars to help the Gaza population.
Speaking from the agency’s headquarters in Gaza, UNRWA commissioner Karen AbuZayd said, “In my eight years in UNRWA, the urgency of an appeal for the people here has never been so acute. I am appalled and saddened when I see the suffering around me.”
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