Israel kills 9 in attack on top Hamas militants

GAZA, July 12: Israel killed nine members of one Palestinian family in an air strike on Gaza today that destroyed a three-storey residential building where the top Hamas commanders were believed to be meeting.

The air raid killed a local Hamas leader, Nabil Abu Selmeya, his wife and seven sons and daughters aged 7 to 19, medics said.

Selmeya's eldest son who was not at home survived, they added.

The Israeli military said the attack wounded Mohammad Deif, leader of the governing Hamas movement's armed wing. The Hamas armed wing denied Deif had been hurt and vowed a ''tough and painful'' response to a strike that also wounded 35 people.

Israel's air raid coincided with an armoured sweep into the central Gaza Strip that broadened an offensive aimed at freeing a captured soldier and halting cross-border rocket fire.

In action elsewhere, the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah said it captured two Israeli soldiers in attacks on Israeli border posts.

Israel's Channel 10 Television reported the army had said two soldiers were missing.

Israel's army said Deif had been in the Gaza building and was targeted because intelligence information showed he and other senior Hamas commanders were planning attacks.

''We know he was injured, but not to what degree,'' said an army spokeswoman.

Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades was one of three groups whose kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit on June 25 led Israel to launch its first ground operations in Gaza since quitting the territory last year.

Deif, in his 40s and who is rarely seen in public, has escaped several Israeli assassination attempts. Those close calls have turned him into a folk hero to many Palestinians.

''Israel will pay for daring to hunt the lion of Qassam,'' said one Hamas activist who gave his name as Ahmed, speaking near the tangle of twisted metal, broken concrete and blood.

NEW PUSH Using bare hands, rescuers dug through the rubble of the building on the edge of Gaza City.

''Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest),'' one youth screamed from under debris as hundreds of onlookers echoed the call. Rescuers later pulled him out and he was rushed to hospital.

Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Qassam brigades, denied Israel's most wanted man had been wounded.

''This is only a cover-up for the massacre of Palestinian civilians committed by the Zionist enemy,'' he said.

He declined to say whether Deif was there at the time.

In its new incursion, the army sent dozens of armoured vehicles into central Gaza before dawn, effectively cutting the territory in two.

Israel has vowed to continue the operation, which has already killed more than 65 Palestinians, until militants free Shalit and stop launching makeshift rockets over the border.

The scene at the bombed Gaza building recalled Israel's assassination of Hamas military commander Salah Shehada in 2002 by dropping a one-tonne bomb on his home. The death of 14 other people in that attack drew a wave of international criticism.

Israeli cabinet minister Haim Ramon said while Israel regretted any civilian casualties, Palestinian militants ''were using innocent people as human shields''.

REUTERS