Tel Aviv/Gaza - Israel killed a top Hamas militant in the Gaza Strip early Saturday morning as aircraft continued to pound the salient on the eighth day of attacks against the Islamist movement. Zakaria al-Jamal, the third senior Hamas leader to be killed in the Israeli assault, was hit when planes attacked the vehicle in which he was driving.
The Israeli military said in a statement that Jamal was a battalion commander in the Hamas military wing, and the head of the movement's rocket-launching squads in Gaza City.
The Israeli military said that the air force had carried out over 25 attacks overnight and Saturday morning.
Targets hit included a college, which the military statement said had been used as a rocket-launching base, and the homes of two Hamas militants. One home had been used as a weapons depot and the other as a meeting place to plan attacks, the statement said.
Four Palestinians - three militants and a civilian - were killed in the attacks.
Reports from the Gaza Strip also said Israeli aircraft attacked two bridges in the centre of the salient, making movement between the south of the enclave and Gaza City, in the north, harder.
Gaza militants, for their part, continued to launch rockets and mortar shells at Israel, with around 10 attacks reported by midday Saturday.
One long-range Grad missile hit a building in the port city of Ashdod, lightly injuring two people and causing damage to the building.
Another rocket fired earlier Saturday morning struck a house in the coastal city of Ashkelon, sparking a fire in the building's yard. No injuries were reported.
Israel launched its "Operation Cast Lead" one week ago, in response to a week of heavy rocket barrages on the Jewish state out of the Gaza Strip following the end of a nervous six-month truce between Israel and Hamas leaders in the salient.
Some 437 Palestinians, the majority militants, have been killed in the hundreds of Israeli strikes, and around 2,300 wounded.
The approximately 450 Palestinian rockets and mortars launched since the start of the operation have resulted in four Israelis killed, three of them civilians, and dozens more wounded.
