Israeli air strike kills Hamas commander in Gaza

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike has killed a Hamas military commander and rocket-maker in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist group that rules the Palestinian territory said on Saturday.

Issa Batran, whose caravan was hit by a missile, was the first Hamas commander killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza since Israel wound up a three-week military offensive there in January 2009.

Hundreds of Hamas supporters attended his funeral.

The Israeli military said it launched air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza after a rocket fired from the enclave exploded in the city of Ashkelon.

The air strikes also hit a training camp used by Hamas and smuggling tunnels along Gaza's southern border with Egypt. Several people were wounded by debris, Palestinian medics said.

Hamas said Batran was a rocket-maker and the head of its military wing in the central Gaza Strip. The militant group has a rocket arsenal of crude, homemade projectiles and longer-range rockets smuggled in through tunnels under the border with Egypt.

Batran escaped an Israeli attack on his house in January 2009 during a devastating military offensive aimed at stopping daily rocket fire from Gaza into Israeli cities. His wife and children were killed in the attack.

Israel carried out the air strikes on Friday after militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Ashkelon on Israel's Mediterranean coast, blowing out the windows of an apartment block and damaging parked cars in a residential area.