Three Hamas commanders killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza

Israeli warplanes killed three high-ranking Hamas military commanders early on Thursday morning, as Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip entered a new phase of assassination attempts targeting the Islamist group's top leaders.

Hamas and Israel said that Raed al-Attar, Mohammed Abu Shamala, and Mohammed Barhoum, commanders of the movement's al-Qassam Brigades were killed in a strike by Israel's air force on a residential building in Rafah, at Gaza's southern border with Egypt. The air strike, co-ordinated between Israel's military and its Shin Bet security service, also killed five civilians and injured several others.

Mr Attar and Mr Abu Shamala were wanted by Israel for their alleged role in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, a soldier who was abducted through a tunnel near the Israeli border with Gaza and freed in 2011 in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel's military on Thursday blamed Mr Abu Shamala for having organised an attempt by 13 Hamas fighters to enter Israel via a tunnel on July 17 in an attack thwarted by its soldiers. It described Mr Barhoum as a senior Hamas operative in the Rafah area who had smuggled weapons and raised funds for the militant group.

The assassinations came a day after Hamas said Israel had targeted Mohammed Deif, al-Qassam's senior commander, and killed his wife and infant son. On Thursday Gaza authorities said that the body of Mr Deif's daughter had also been pulled from the rubble of the house Israel flattened in Tuesday's attack.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, said on Wednesday evening that senior Hamas leaders were a "legitimate target", signalling a third phase in its military operation, which began on July 7 as an air campaign aimed at stopping rocket launches from Gaza, then expanded to a ground operation targeting Hamas tunnels.

Targeted assassinations are a controversial tactic Israel has used since the 1960s against opponents it could not easily defeat in conventional battle.

In remarks apparently aimed at both the Israeli public and his critics in government, Mr Netanyahu also lashed out at fellow ministers who spoke "irresponsibly" about the war. Avigdor Lieberman, foreign minister, and some other members of his cabinet have urged the prime minister to pursue Hamas more aggressively inside Gaza, including through a possible renewed ground operation aimed at toppling the group.

However, earlier this month, Israel's Channel 2 news, citing an unnamed cabinet member, reported that Mr Netanyahu had presented colleagues with a "horror scenario" outlining what would happen if Israel were to reoccupy Gaza, including hundreds of Israeli soldier deaths and thousands more Palestinians killed, entailing an operation that could become entangled for five more years or more.

In pursuing Mr Deif, then the three other al-Qassam commanders, from the air, analysts said Israel was seeking to wear down Hamas's resolve after talks on an Egyptian peace plan ended in deadlock on Tuesday and heavy fighting resumed.

Most of Hamas's senior leaders have spent the war in hiding, so its success in killing the three al-Qassam commanders marks a public relations coup at a time when Israelis are questioning a war that has not achieved its stated goals of restoring "quiet" and weakening the Islamist group.

"What happened now is that after 35 days in the bunkers and the tunnels they wanted to go out a little bit," Amos Yadlin, director of the Institute for National Security Studies, said in a conference call organised by the Israel Project, a pro-Israeli advocacy group. "This gave an opportunity to find them in the right place."

Israel has not yet confirmed whether Mr Deif died in Tuesday's attack. Israeli media speculated that he would have been unlikely to survive the five missile strikes on the house where his family was staying, assuming he was there; Mr Yadlin said that Israel might comment when it can "say 100 per cent that he is dead".

Meanwhile, a key element of Israel's casus belli against Hamas appeared to be confirmed after a senior Hamas figure said that al-Qassam members had planned the abduction of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank whose murder in June set in train events that led up to the war.

"The popular will was exercised throughout our occupied land, and culminated in the heroic operation by the Qassam Brigades in imprisoning the three settlers in Hebron," Saleh al-Arouri said at a conference of Islamic scholars in Istanbul on Wednesday.

Hamas had until now neither confirmed nor denied it planned the attack, and there was speculation in Israel that it had been carried out by one of the group's cells acting alone.

The Islamist group remained defiant, firing rockets into Israel and warning foreign airlines that as of Thursday they should not to fly to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport, which saw a rash of flight cancellations last month after a rocket from Gaza landed nearby.

Saraya Al-Quds, the military wing of the militant Islamic Jihad group, said early on Thursday morning that Mr Netanyahu would "drown in Gaza mud" and the "heroic resistance" from the enclave would end his political career.

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