GAZA, Jan 1: Israel killed a senior Hamas leader in an air attack on his home on Thursday, striking its first deadly blow against the top ranks of the group in a Gaza offensive that has claimed more than 400 Palestinian lives.

Nizar Rayyan had called for renewed suicide bombings inside Israel. Medical officials, confirming his death, said two of his four wives and seven of his children were killed in the bombing, in Jabalya refugee camp.

Hundreds of supporters scrambling over the concrete rubble vowed revenge as the mangled bodies, covered in blood and cement dust, were extracted from the wreckage.

“The blood of Sheikh Nizar Rayyan and the blood of other martyrs will never be wasted and the enemy will pay a heavy price for crimes it committed,” said Hamas official Ayman Taha.

Black-bearded Rayyan, 49, was a preacher at Jabalya’s “mosque of martyrs”. Hamas Radio said he had ignored advice to leave his house as other Hamas leaders have done in anticipation of assassination attempts by Israeli forces, who confirmed the air strike.

After talks in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni reiterated Israel’s rejection of a French-proposed ceasefire of 48 hours to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“There is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce,” she said. “Israel has been supplying comprehensive humanitarian aid to the Strip ... and has even been stepping this up by the day.”The deadliest conflict in the Gaza Strip in four decades has killed at least 410 Palestinians and wounded some 1,850. About a quarter of the dead were civilians, the UN estimates.

On the sixth day of hostilities, Israeli aircraft and naval forces attacked about 20 Hamas targets, including a government complex, the Israeli military said.

Visiting southern Israeli towns where rockets fired from Gaza have killed four people since Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was fighting Hamas with an “iron fist”.

Israeli television broadcast film of rubble-strewn street in the port of Ashdod, where a Hamas rocket tore into the eighth floor of a high-rise. Several residents were treated for shock.

In New York, the UN Security Council held an emergency session but adjourned without a vote after Arab countries pushed for an immediate ceasefire. Western delegates described the Arab-drafted resolution as unbalanced and said negotiations would continue to reach an agreed text.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli attacks must stop before any truce proposals could be considered. Israel must also lift its economic blockade of Gaza and open border crossings.

The Czech prime minister, who holds the European Union presidency, said EU foreign ministers would conduct a mission to the Middle East, likely to coincide with a visit to Jerusalem on Monday by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.—Reuters