Israeli Forces Level Hamas Safe House; 6 Slain

Israeli aircraft early today bombarded a safe house where senior commanders of Hamas’ military wing were meeting, killing at least six people. At the same time, Israeli troops and armor widened a 2-week-old offensive by pushing into the south-central Gaza Strip, where a senior militant leader was killed.

The actions represented a risky new approach in Israel’s efforts to free an Israeli soldier held by three Palestinian militant factions, including Hamas’ military wing, the Izzidin al-Qassam Brigade. The soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, was captured June 25 in a cross-border raid.

The Israeli airstrike leveled a house in Gaza City’s Sheik Radwan neighborhood, where many Hamas figures live. Palestinian security sources said the home, which belonged to Nabil Salmiah, a Hamas leader, was apparently being used as a hide-out by senior commanders.

The Israeli army acknowledged carrying out the strike and said it was meant to thwart attacks. Military officials said a high-level meeting of Hamas commanders was in progress, but Palestinian medical officials said at least three of the dead appeared to be members of Salmiah’s family: a woman and two children.

Though it would be something of a coup for Israeli intelligence to pinpoint and target a gathering of senior Hamas operatives, the strike carried the danger that the captive soldier, a 19-year-old tank gunner, could suffer some form of retaliation. As recently as last weekend, Israeli officials had said they believed he was alive and in relatively good physical condition.

About two dozen people were reported hurt in the massive explosion, which sent shrapnel ricocheting into nearby buildings, smashed water mains and left electrical cables dangling over the rubble. Ambulances converged on the scene, racing through the darkened city streets.

As the airstrike was launched, the movement of troops and tanks via the Kissufim crossing into the south-central Gaza Strip in effect opened a new front in Israel’s incursion, which began June 28 and has killed more than 60 Palestinians.

Armored vehicles rolled into farmland near the densely populated town of Khan Yunis and around the Palestinian village of Deir al Balah, witnesses said.

About the same time, an Israeli airstrike just outside Khan Yunis killed a senior commander of the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the groups apparently holding the Israeli soldier. He was identified as Ala abu Nouseireh.

It was the first time during the current offensive that troops had entered this area, which is where Shalit was believed to have been taken immediately after his capture. Palestinian militants use fields surrounding Khan Yunis to launch makeshift rockets.

Previously, Israeli forces had seized a disused airport in southern Gaza, clashed last week with Palestinian guerrillas in the north and skirmished this week with fighters on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City.

On Tuesday, Israeli human rights groups appealed to the nation’s Supreme Court to force the army to stop bombarding civilian infrastructure and allow more supplies into Gaza.

Israeli forces staged half a dozen airstrikes from early morning to evening Tuesday, aimed mainly at what an army spokesman said were either Palestinian gunmen or militants preparing to fire rockets. At least two Palestinian militants were reported killed and several civilians hurt.

The targets of Tuesday’s airstrikes included the remnants of a highway bridge in the northern Gaza village of Beit Hanoun, which had been bombarded last week. The strike on the bridge also smashed water and sewage pipes, leaving an enormous heap of reeking rubble.

“How, I ask you, does this help Israel get its soldier back?” asked Mohammed Hassan, who was jolted out of his bed early Tuesday by the blast.

Israeli officials say the destruction of at least four highway bridges hampers the movement of militants.

Palestinians and human rights groups say strikes against infrastructure, including a direct hit on the territory’s main electrical plant, cause needless suffering among civilians and do little to advance Israel’s stated military aims.

Israel’s chokehold on Gaza crossings has been a growing point of contention during the incursion. The Israeli military contends that adequate amounts of basic foodstuffs and fuel are reaching the territory, while Palestinians say hardship caused by shortages is growing.

The army said in a statement that on Monday and Tuesday, supplies that included 90 tons of milk products, 40 tons of flour, a truckload of medicine and more than 260,000 gallons of fuel were shipped into Gaza.

But in Gaza City, the shelves of many stores, dimly lighted and stifling because of power cuts, were beginning to appear sparsely stocked. Shopkeepers said many people could not afford even basic products, as the Hamas-led government has been unable to pay public employees for months because of a cutoff of international aid.

The Palestinian government Tuesday repeated its calls for a cease-fire. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said there will be no letup in the offensive until the missing soldier is freed.

“I say to the leaders of the occupation, the leaders of Israel, let the language of reason, wisdom and logic prevail,” Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas official, told government ministers at a Cabinet meeting. “We, in the Palestinian government ... say that political negotiations, diplomacy and calm

Israel holds Haniyeh’s government responsible for the continuing captivity of the soldier. Israel has rounded up dozens of Hamas officials in the West Bank, bombed Haniyeh’s office and threatened to assassinate senior government figures if Shalit is not freed, steps the Palestinians say are aimed at toppling the elected government.

Palestinians also have vehemently protested the sealing off of Gaza’s frontier with Egypt. The Rafah crossing has been closed since the start of the crisis, stranding thousands of Palestinians on the Egyptian side.

On Tuesday, two Palestinians -- one an infant, the other a 19-year-old woman who had received medical treatment in Egypt -- died on the Egyptian side of the border, Palestinian officials said. The causes of their deaths were not immediately disclosed, but officials cited the oppressive summer heat and squalid conditions at the border.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has been trying to arrange for more than 500 of the most vulnerable in the waiting crowd -- including pregnant women, the sick and the elderly -- to reenter Gaza.

Times staff writer King reported from Jerusalem and special correspondent Alouf from Gaza City.