Hamas Leader Killed in Israeli Airstrike

A senior member of Hamas was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home today, after Israel rejected any temporary halt to its bombing campaign.

Nizar Rayyan, a strong advocate of renewed suicide bombings who had close ties to the military wing of Hamas, was killed with members of his family. It is the first time aircraft have targeted a political leader of Hamas since Israel launched its offensive on Saturday.

Medics said seven people were killed and about 30 were wounded in the air strike on Rayyan's house today.

Israel also targeted government buildings in Gaza and continued to mass troops along the border, while demanding international monitors as a key term of any future truce.

Hamas security officials said buildings housing the education and transportation ministries had been virtually destroyed. The Palestinian parliament building was also hit, they said. Gunmen in Gaza retaliated by firing a long-range rocket at the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva.

As Israel carried out air strikes for a sixth day, the Israeli military said preparations for a ground operation were complete.

"The infantry, the artillery and other forces are ready. They're around the Gaza Strip, waiting for any calls to go inside," Major Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, said.

A possible invasion by Israeli forces could range from limited ground incursions to a much larger land invasion of Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians. Another call-up of reservists has been approved, bringing the total to 9,000.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, will not agree to a truce unless international monitors take responsibility for enforcing it, government officials said, a point he made in talks with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and other world leaders.

Meanwhile, Israel widened its buffer zone under military authority around Gaza to a radius of 25 miles after the reach of Hamas rockets extended to the town of Be'er Sheva.

A poll in the Ha'aretz newspaper showed most Israelis, 52%, favoured pursuing the attacks in Gaza, with 20% backing calls for a ceasefire, and 19% favouring a ground offensive into the Palestinian territory. The Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said Israel must stop its attacks, lift its economic blockade of Gaza and open border crossings before any truce proposals could be considered.

In the first indication of a division over the course of the engagement since the conflict began on Saturday, Olmert personally championed a continuation of the military campaign while his defence minister, Ehud Barak, proposed a 48-hour halt on Tuesday night.

"If conditions will ripen and we think there will be a diplomatic solution that will ensure a better security reality in the south we will consider it. But at the moment, it's not there," an aide quoted Olmert as saying.

"We didn't start this operation just to end it with rocket fire continuing as it did before it began. Imagine if we declare a unilateral ceasefire and a few days later rockets fall on Ashkelon. What will that do to Israel's deterrence?"

Olmert met Barak, foreign minister Tzipi Livni and his senior commanders for an apparently tense four-hour meeting on Tuesday night. A security cabinet meeting yesterday then decided against any pause in the bombing.

The French government had tried to convince the Israelis to accept the pause and to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. But Israel's leaders were keen not to repeat the experience of the 2006 Lebanon war when divisions over strategy led to recriminations and loss of confidence among the Israeli public.

Israeli jets yesterday bombed smuggling tunnels on the Egyptian border as well as a mosque in Gaza City, which the military said was used to store weapons.

Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets into southern Israel, reaching a new range of around 25 miles and hitting the city of Be'er Sheva. The rockets have killed four Israelis since Saturday. The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza rose to 393 with 1,650 wounded in five days.

Most military analysts say it is unlikely that Israel would embark on a costly full reoccupation of Gaza and not enough troops are in position for that. More likely is a series of smaller raids. However, although Israel faced little international criticism when the conflict started, pressure for a halt to the violence is growing from western governments as well as the UN and aid agencies.

Israel has allowed in around 100 trucks loaded with humanitarian supplies on each of the past two days, but that comes after months of severe economic blockade and big shortfalls in Gaza of food and medical supplies. The UN said it was still well short of what was needed and described the humanitarian situation in Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, as "alarming".

One Hamas spokesman in Gaza said the group was open to another ceasefire, but wanted Israel's economic blockade lifted. For more than a year Israel has prevented all imports, except limited humanitarian supplies, and prevented all exports from Gaza ? in effect destroying private business.