Israeli Minister Issues Death Threat to Hamas Leaders

All Hamas leaders should be killed to end rocket attacks from Gaza, a senior Israeli cabinet official said today, as Israeli planes carried out new air strikes in the territory.

"I don't distinguish between those who carry out the (rocket) attacks and those who give the orders. I say we have to put them all in the crosshairs," said Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the national infrastructure minister, on Israel Radio.

The comments from Mr Ben-Eliezer, a foreign policy hawk, came one day after Israeli jets struck the home of a Hamas politician, Khalil al-Hayya. He was not there but hospital officials said eight people died in the deadliest attack since Israel started retaliating to rocket salvos from Gaza last week.

An Israeli army spokeswoman Captain Noa Meir said the strike was not aimed at Mr al-Haya, but at a group of five armed Hamas men, including a senior militant, near the home.

"They, and only they, were the target, and they were hit," Ms Meir said, adding that any civilian casualties "were the result of the terrorists' use of civilians as human shields".

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a top aide to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, condemned Israel for the attack.

"This escalation will lead the Middle East to more violence and instability," he said .

Hamas and Mr Abbas's Fatah faction are partners in a two-month-old unity government that is on the verge of breaking point because of recent infighting that has left 50 Palestinians dead.

In the latest air strike, one man was killed in what Palestinian officials described as a stone mason's shop; Israel claimed it was a rocket manufacturing facility. The attack also knocked out electricity for about 50,000 people.

Israel also targeted Hamas in the West Bank, raiding and shutting down four television stations linked with Hamas in the city of Nablus, a militant stronghold.

As Israel increased the military pressure on Hamas, the internal security minister, Avi Dichter, said Hamas's leader-in-exile, Khaled Meshaal, whom Israel tried to assassinate in Jordan in 1997, would not be "immune" to Israeli attack.

Mr Dichter told Israel Radio that the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader who lives in Gaza, could be targeted should he become involved in ordering the rocket fire.

Hamas, which last carried out a suicide bombing in Israel in 2004, has threatened to respond with "an earthquake" to the air strikes.

In stepping up military action in response to continued rocket attacks, the Israeli cabinet has stopped short of authorizing an all-out offensive on Gaza, which Israel left nearly two years ago.

Mr Ben-Eliezer said a large-scale ground operation in Gaza, where militants are dug in and deployed across residential areas, risked plunging Israel into a "quagmire".

Israeli military action and an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire seem to have largely stopped more than a week of intensive fighting between Hamas and Fatah.

Despite the air strikes, Gaza militants fired four more rockets at Israel, the army said. There were no casualties.