Airstrike kills Hamas militant, 10 others

A Palestinian boy awaits medical attention at a Gaza hospital.

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- An Israeli airstrike in a Gaza City neighborhood Monday night apparently killed a top Hamas militant and left at least 10 other people dead, Palestinian hospital officials said. Palestinians said seven of the dead were children.

Israel said the target of the strike was Salah Shehade, the leader in Gaza of the Izzedine al Qassam, the military wing of the militant Islamic group Hamas.

Israel called Shehade a "known terrorist" blamed for hundreds of terror attacks and scores of casualties.

The airstrike apparently targeted Shehade's house in Gaza City.

Palestinian hospital officials said at least 11 people were killed when an F-16 fired a missile in the direction of a residential area and hit three buildings. About 150 people were wounded in the strike and bodies were being pulled from rubble, Palestinian security sources said.

In all, seven children -- including a 2-month-old baby -- and four adults were killed, Palestinian hospital sources said. The attack left 15 critically wounded.

There were conflicting reports on the fate of Shehade.

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Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin said Tuesday morning that Shehade was dead after alternating reports he had been killed, then had survived the airstrike.

Israeli sources initially asserted they had killed Shehade. But later, Israel Defense Forces said it was uncertain of his fate.

Palestinian sources also said initially that Shehade was dead but afterward said he was not at home at the time of the strike and is still alive.

The Palestinian sources said Israel targeted his house, killing his wife and three children. Their bodies were identified in a hospital, the sources said.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat called the airstrike a "despicable act."

"I don't think [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon had intended by doing this tonight to give the peace process any chance at all. Nothing justifies the targeting and the bombardment of this residential area," Erakat said.

Israel: 'Known terrorist' was target

The Israeli army said Shehade was, indeed, dead and regarded statements to the contrary as wrong. Anyone who says Shehade is still alive is trying to create a myth, the army said.

Shehade, left, "has much Israeli blood on his hands," an Israeli official said.

Gideon Meir, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, called the act a "precise Israeli airstrike against a known terrorist."

"He has much Israeli blood on his hands," Meir said, adding that Israel was attempting to protect its citizens, including women and children, from terror attacks. "What we are doing is self-defense."

The Israeli sources said Shehade is responsible for hundreds of attacks perpetrated by the military wing of Hamas for the past two years, since the beginning of the current intifada in September 2000.

Among the attacks, the sources said:

The sources also called Shehade the "spirit" behind all the activities of Hamas during the past two years in Gaza and the West Bank. In addition, they said, he oversaw Hamas field commanders in Gaza and the West Bank and defined the policy of terror attacks by Hamas.

Shehade was also the link between Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank and other Arab countries, they said.

The sources accused Shehade of being responsible for arming the military wing of Hamas with mortars.

"Since no finger by the Palestinian Authority was ever lifted to arrest Hamas senior militants," the Israelis decided to do it themselves, one Israeli source said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement saying, "The government of Israel must halt such actions and it must conduct itself in a manner which does not allow for the killing of innocent civilians."

Television reports showed scenes of chaos. Wounded were taken on stretchers to hospitals, and bloodied, distraught people walked amid the rubble.

Palestinians clash with Israeli soldiers

Israeli military sources quoted by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz said Hamas would make "every effort" to strike back as thousands demonstrated in Gaza City calling for revenge.

Meanwhile, Palestinians were clashing with Israeli soldiers in Khan Yunis, a refugee camp in southern Gaza, sources said.

In the Rafah area, near the Gaza-Egypt border, an Israeli army post came under a sustained attack by Palestinian militants not long after the strike.

Dozens of grenades and anti-tank missiles were fired, and sniper and smaller arms fire was reported.

The Israelis then called in a tank and a reinforced armored personnel carrier and staved off the assault. The Israelis said there were no casualties on their side.

In 1996, Yahya Ayyash, another top Hamas military leader known as "The Engineer," was killed in Gaza by a booby-trapped mobile telephone in an attack widely attributed to Israel's Shin Bet security service.

Ayyash's death unleashed four retaliatory suicide bombings by Hamas that killed dozens of Israelis.

Monday night's strike came the day after Israeli troops in Gaza opened fire on a group of Palestinians it said was a "terrorist cell," hitting two of them. Palestinian security sources said the two Palestinians were members of Islamic Jihad and were killed.

Two Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded in the exchange, IDF said, which happened near the settlement of Gush Katif in southern Gaza.

Earlier Monday, the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said his group would consider ending terror attacks if the Israelis were to withdraw from the Palestinian territories.

"Once the occupation and all those measures against our people stop, we are ready to totally study stopping martyrdom operations in a positive way," Yassin told reporters in Gaza. "But, at the moment, we are not willing to say anything as long as it [Israel] continues its aggression."

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Monday that Israel is prepared to pull out of Hebron and Bethlehem if Palestinian security officials are ready to prevent terror attacks.

Other developments

-- CNN Correspondent John Vause contributed to this report.