IAF aircraft on Monday night struck the house of Maher Zakut, a senior Hamas activist, the army said. In was unclear whether Zakut was in the house at the time. Palestinian sources said that seven people were killed in the strike. According to reports, several more targets were struck in the Strip.
Five people were reportedly killed when an IAF aircraft targeted a car.
The air force also struck a truck carrying Grad-type missiles, setting off a series of secondary explosions, the IDF said. The army believes that Hamas was transferring the missiles to a hideout out of fear that their location had been compromised. The trasfer was also supposedly intended to bring them closer to areas from which they could be launched at Israel.
Earlier, Palestinian sources reported that Ziad Abu-Tir, 36, a senior activist in Islamic Jihad, was killed along with four others, in an air strike in the central Gaza Strip, near Khan Yunis.Meanwhile, Hamas said that two members of its armed wing were killed as the IAF struck facilities belonging to the group in the southern Gaza town, and Al Jazeera reported that the Navy also participated in the operation, shelling Hamas targets.
The IAF also carried out a second attack on Hamas targets in the Islamic University buildings east of Khan Yunis.
The IAF bombed the Islamic University and government compound in Gaza City early Monday morning, both centers of Hamas power. Witnesses saw fire and smoke at the university, counting six separate air strikes there just after midnight.
Two laboratories in the university, which served as research and development centers for Hamas's military wing, were targeted. The development of explosives was done under the auspices of university professors.
University buildings were also used for meetings of senior Hamas officials.
The IDF said rockets and explosives were stored in the buildings.
For the first time, overnight Sunday, the IDF Navy began to participate in the operations and bombed targets across the Gaza Strip. Among them were smuggling tunnels, weapons manufacturing plants and weapon warehouses, as well as boats used by Palestinian terrorists.
Other targets included a guest palace used by the Hamas government, and the house next to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's home in a refugee camp next to Gaza City. He was not home, as Hamas leaders have gone into hiding.
Seven Palestinians were killed in the late night strikes, according to Israel Radio.
On Sunday, Israel continued to pound the Gaza Strip, striking at 40 tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor as the defense establishment received approval to call up thousands of reservists and considered sending ground forces deep into Gaza to hunt down and destroy Hamas infrastructure.
Throughout the day, forces continued to amass along the Gaza border. IDF artillery batteries were deployed outside Gaza for the first time in a year, alongside tanks and infantry troops. Defense officials would not specify when and if the ground operation would be launched but stressed that Israel would not hesitate to expand and deepen its operations as necessary.
UNRWA said that at least 57 of the 322 Palestinians reportedly killed in the Gaza Strip so far during Operation Cast Lead were civilians.
"[The count] is likely to be conservative and it is certainly rising," Reuters quoted UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness as saying on Monday.
He said he was basing the estimate on visits by his agency to hospitals and medical centers across Gaza.
Source: The Jerusalem Post. AP contributed to this report.
