AS THE Palestinian death toll rose above 400, a Hamas leader was killed in an Israeli air strike yesterday, on the sixth day of Israel's war in Gaza.
Thousands of Israeli troops, backed by tanks and artillery, remained along the border, waiting for orders to begin a ground offensive, which may now be closer after a period of wintry weather cleared.
Unlike other Hamas leaders, 49-year-old Nizar Rayan had refused to go into hiding. He was killed when a one-ton bomb hit his home in Jebalya, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Nine other people were killed in the attack, including two of his four wives and four of his 12 children.Some two dozen people were hurt.
Israeli defence officials claim the building was also used to store weapons, and that warnings were issued to residents before the strike.
Mr Rayan, a lecturer at Gaza's Islamic university, acted as a liaison between the Hamas political and military wings. He was the first confirmed casualty among the Hamas leadership from the Israeli aerial bombardment which began on Saturday.
Palestinian sources claim that among the other buildings hit yesterday was a school in Gaza city, causing the death of 10 people.
Despite the relentless attacks, militants succeeded in keeping up a steady barrage of projectiles into southern Israel. One rocket fell on an eight-storey residential building in the port city of Ashdod.
Israel's three largest southern cities, Beersheba, Ashdod and Ashkelon, are now being hit on a regular basis by longer-range Grad-type Katyusha rockets manufactured in China. Some 900,000 Israelis are now in Hamas rocket range. Four Israelis have been killed since Saturday.
Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, visiting Beersheba, said Israel did not seek a prolonged military campaign in Gaza, but "we want quiet and we want the lives of southerners to change so that our children can grow up in security, without fear and nightmares".
Israeli media reported the army had recommended a major but short-term ground offensive.
The Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, told Gazans that "victory was close". He spoke after Israel rejected a French proposal for a 48-hour "humanitarian ceasefire", insisting that international monitors be part of any truce agreement.
In New York, the UN Security Council adjourned an emergency session without a vote. Western delegates described an Arab-drafted resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire as unbalanced and said talks would continue to agree a text.
Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek announced that EU foreign ministers would conduct a mission to the region, likely to coincide with a visit to Jerusalem on Monday by French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Meanwhile, Israel's supreme court, in response to a petition from the Foreign Press Association, ruled that eight foreign journalists be permitted to cross into Gaza from Israel to cover the conflict first hand when the border is opened to allow in humanitarian supplies.
The left-wing Meretz party took out ads in Israeli newspapers yesterday in support of a ceasefire. The party, which supported the war at the outset, along with all other mainstream Israeli parties, warned that launching a ground offensive would lead to "an unnecessary loss of life on both sides".
Opinion polls showed support among the Israeli public for the war at between 80 and 90 per cent. A poll in Ha'aretz newspaper found 52 per cent backed continuing the air strikes, but only 19 per cent supported launching a ground war.