Israeli Airstrike Kills a Top Hamas Leader

Israel's military, which has said the homes of Hamas leaders are being used to store missiles and other weapons, said the attack on Rayan's house triggered secondary explosions from the arms stockpiled there.

A Palestinian man places a green Islamic flag used by the militant group Hamas on the rubble of a...

A Palestinian man places a green Islamic flag used by the militant group Hamas on the rubble of a destroyed mosque after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008. Israel rejected mounting international pressure to suspend its devastating offensive against Palestinian militants, sending warplanes Wednesday to demolish smuggling tunnels that are the lifeline of Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers. Troops and tanks massed along the Gaza border, suggesting a ground invasion was imminent. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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Seven other Palestinians were killed in airstrikes Thursday and one died of earlier injuries.

Israel has targeted Hamas leaders many times in the past, and the current leadership went into hiding at the start of the offensive. Rayan, however, was known for openly defying Israel and in the past had led crowds to the homes of wanted Hamas figures — as if daring Israel to strike and risk the lives of civilians.

Residents said he openly went to a nearby mosque Thursday morning to pray.

In his last interview, recorded with Hamas TV on Wednesday, Rayan was as defiant as ever about confronting the Israeli military.

"Oh fighters, know that you will be victorious," he said. "God promises us either victory or martyrdom. God is greater than they are, God is greater than their planes, God is greater than their rockets."

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The military said it had information that there was a tunnel beneath Rayan's home for use as an escape route.

Israel seemed determined to press ahead with airstrikes on Hamas houses. It also has been targeting buildings used by the territory's Hamas government — emptied days ago by evacuations — as well as rocket-launching sites and smuggling tunnels along the border with Egypt.

"We are trying to hit everybody who is a leader of the organization, and today we hit one of their leaders," Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said in a television interview.

More than 400 Gazans had been killed and some 1,700 wounded since Israel embarked on its aerial campaign, Gaza health officials said. The United Nations has said the death toll includes more than 60 civilians, 34 of them children.

One of them, 11-year-old Ismail Hamdan, was buried Thursday after dying of wounds suffered from an airstrike Tuesday that killed two of his sisters, Haya, 4, and Lama, 12. His body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag and his battered face was still bandaged as he was carried above a crowd of mourners.

Since Saturday, three Israeli civilians and one soldier have also died in rocket attacks that have reached deeper into Israel than ever before, bringing more than a tenth of Israel's population of 7 million within rocket range.