JERUSALEM — An Israeli missile strike in the Gaza Strip killed a major Hamas political and military leader Thursday, along with most of his family, as the militant group continued to launch its own rockets deep into Israeli territory.
The dueling missile strikes came amid rising global calls for an end to the bloodshed, which has killed at least 418 Palestinians and four Israelis.
The attack on Nizar Rayan, confirmed by Israeli officials, family members and Hamas, might signal a shift in Israeli tactics as the assault on Gaza enters its sixth day. After nearly a week of pounding police stations, security compounds, rocket-launching cells and cross-border tunnels, Israel could be reviving its former practice of assassination strikes on Hamas leaders.
Rayan, 49, was the most senior Hamas official killed since the movement’s co-founders Shiek Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi died in Israeli airstrikes less than a month apart in 2004, said a senior Hamas official speaking on condition of anonymity.
An Islamic scholar and university instructor, Rayan was a force in both the political and military wings of Hamas, which controls Gaza.
The hulking, bearded imam was an iconic hard-line theologian and military commander.
“This is a difficult hit for Hamas. Even they admit it,” said Maj. Avital Leibovich, an army spokeswoman.
Leibovich declined to comment on whether the strike on Rayan represented a formal return of the assassination policy.
The battle-hardened militant group has proved adept at replacing slain leaders, calling into question the effectiveness of the tactic.
After the killings of Yassin and Rantisi, Hamas regrouped stronger than ever around a new command structure based in both Gaza and Damascus, Syria.
In January 2006, it won Palestinian parliamentary elections over its bitter rival, the U.S.-backed Fatah faction. When a brief Fatah-Hamas unity government collapsed in the summer of 2007, Hamas fighters routed better-equipped Fatah forces in four days.
Despite Hamas’ demonstrated adaptability, Rayan’s death is a clear loss on multiple levels.
He was uniquely popular and respected among the military wing; unlike most of the movement’s civilian leadership, Rayan fought alongside his own troops in battles with Israeli soldiers and tanks.
He advocated suicide bombings and sent his own 22-year-old son to his death in an attack on an Israeli settlement.
While most senior Hamas leaders went into hiding when the Israeli air barrages began, Rayan made a point of living openly in a home in Jabaliya refugee camp. He encouraged other leaders to follow suit.
Thirteen other members of Rayan’s family, including his four wives, died in the strike, Rayan’s teenage son, Baraa, told the Los Angeles Times. Two more children are missing and presumed to be buried under the rubble of their family home.
“We are patient, and we are committed to the resistance,” Baraa Rayan said.
Meanwhile, tanks and thousands of Israeli soldiers remained massed on the Gaza border awaiting an order to invade the densely populated and fortified coastal territory.
Before dawn today, Israeli aircraft hit 15 houses belonging to Hamas militants, Palestinians said. They said the Israelis either warned nearby residents by phone or fired a warning missile to reduce civilian casualties. Twelve people were hurt in the attacks, hospital officials said.
In the face of mounting international calls for an end to the campaign, Israeli officials defended their strikes as necessary to ensure an end to the daily rocket launches from Gaza that threaten a widening swath of southern Israel.
“Hamas understands that Israel has changed the equation,” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said before leaving for Paris to consult with French officials. “The situation in which they shoot and we do not respond is over.”
Livni’s French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, has proposed a 48-hour halt in the fighting to allow delivery of humanitarian relief and give time for international mediators to work out a long-term truce.
Livni and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have dismissed the proposal as premature and said the offensive would continue until its goals were met.
Israeli aircraft have flown an estimated 500 sorties over Gaza since Saturday, including another 50 on Thursday. But despite the steady pounding, fighters from the Izzidin al-Qassam Brigades and smaller Palestinian militias continue to launch dozens of rockets into southern Israel each day.
With Palestinian public anger running high over the mounting casualties, Israeli officials are bracing for unrest today.
