Airstrike kills highest-ranking Hamas leader yet

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- An Israeli missile Thursday struck the home of Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas military commander in northern Gaza, killing him and nine others in a refugee camp, Hamas and Palestinian medical sources said.

It was one of several Israeli airstrikes Thursday in or near the Jabalya refugee camp, Gaza City and other areas in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military would not say whether it was targeting Rayan. Members of his family were believed to be among the dead.

Rayan is the most senior Hamas leader killed in Israel's six-day air offensive on Gaza, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz. The newspaper described him as an "outspoken advocate of renewing suicide bombings against Israel."

Video showed crowds of men outside the remains of Rayan's home, shouting as they climbed mounds of debris, pulling bodies from the rubble and searching for other victims. Nearby buildings were heavily damaged, and rubble -- some streaked with blood -- clogged the streets.

Rayan was one of the main founders of Hamas, and reportedly called on Gazans not to abandon their homes during the ongoing Israeli air attacks, even if they received threats to evacuate, according to Arab media reports.

As the Hamas television station Al-Aqsa showed his body, a visibly shaken anchor described Rayan as "the first who stayed behind to fight and defend the faithful in Gaza. He would never leave, even when his closest aides would ask him to."

"He stood once in front of the people and said about the Qassam rockets that these are the rockets of pride, these are the rockets of glory," the TV presenter said.

The Israeli military described Rayan as a senior Hamas military figure who was behind a 2004 suicide bombing in Ashdod, in which 10 Israelis were killed, and an October 2001 suicide mission in a Jewish settlement in Gaza that the military said was carried out by his son. Two Israelis were killed in that mission, the military said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni arrived in Paris on Thursday to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and other officials. She reiterated Israel's rejection Wednesday of a French cease-fire proposal, Haaretz reported, citing the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

"What we are doing now is changing the equation, making it a better reality to our citizens, stopping the rockets on Israel," Livni said, shortly after arriving in Paris.

Israel launched the bombing campaign Saturday in an effort to halt the firing of rockets into southern Israel from Hamas-ruled Gaza. Four Israelis -- three of them civilians -- have been killed and 56 wounded by Palestinian rocket fire, police, military and medical officials have said.

Palestinian medical sources said at least 400 people, including 42 children, have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli raids began Saturday.

Palestinian militants continued to fire missiles into southern Israel. The Israeli military said four rockets struck Beer Sheva on Wednesday and at least two medium-range rockets struck the community on Thursday. Beer Sheva is about 19 miles outside Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Beer Sheva earlier Thursday, vowing to deal with Hamas "with an iron fist."

"We will act so that there will be quiet in the southern towns. I truly hope that we will reach our goals in the quickest way possible," he said Thursday morning. "What we want is that our children can grow up in security and that the children of Sderot, Beer Sheva and Ashkelon will not have to run from the rockets."

Israel targeted the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza City overnight, gutting the structure. The ministries of justice and education and civil defense headquarters, to the city's west, also were bombed

Meanwhile, in Rome, Italy, on Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI prayed for peace in Gaza.

"To Mary we entrust our profound desire to live in peace that rises from the heart of the great majority of the Israeli and Palestinian population, once again jeopardized by the massive outbreak of violence in the Gaza Strip in response to other violence," he said at a morning Mass.