GAZA CITY (CNN) -- The Israeli air force bombed the homes Thursday of two top Hamas military figures, killing at least one of them.
Palestinian firefighters pour water Thursday on the rubble of the home of Hamas commander Nizar Rayan.
The Hamas television station Al-Aqsa showed the body of Nizar Rayan, a commander in northern Gaza, being pulled from the rubble of his house in Jabalya, north of Gaza City.
Rayan, one of the main founders of Hamas, is the senior-most Hamas leader to be killed in Israel's six-day air offensive on Gaza, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
The Islamist University lecturer "ranked among Hamas' top five decision-makers as the liaison between the group's military and political wing," the paper said.
The newspaper also described him as an "outspoken advocate of renewing suicide bombings against Israel."
The Israeli Defense Forces said Rayan was behind a 2004 suicide bombing in Ashdod, in which 10 Israelis were killed, and an October 2001 suicide mission in a Jewish settlement in Gaza that his son carried out. Two Israelis were killed in that mission, the military said. Learn who's who in Gaza »
The Israelis would not say whether they were specifically targeting Rayan in the assault. The bombing touched off secondary explosions from munitions and weapons stored in the home, Haaretz reported.
Nine other people also died in the attack, Hamas and Palestinian medical sources said, some of whom were believed to be members of Rayan's family. Watch how civilians are caught in the crossfire »
Rayan had urged Gazans not to abandon their homes during the Israeli air attacks, even if they received threats to evacuate, Arab media reported.
Video showed crowds of men outside the remains of Rayan's house, shouting as they climbed mounds of debris, pulling bodies from the rubble and searching for other victims. Nearby buildings were heavily damaged, and rubble -- some streaked with blood -- clogged the streets.
An airstrike also hit the Gaza City home of senior Hamas military operative Nabil Amrin, causing weaponry stored inside to explode, the IDF said.
There was no word on possible casualties, and the IDF said they didn't know whether Amrin was home at the time.
The attacks were among dozens Thursday in northern Gaza in what Israel says is a response to ongoing Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel. The IDF said in a statement that more than 40 rockets fell in Israel, and it carried out over 50 airstrikes on Gaza.
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Background: Gaza crisis
The military has said it is targeting only Hamas militants, and Hamas has vowed to defend Gaza in the face of what it calls continued Israeli aggression.
In Paris, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose truce proposal was turned down Wednesday by Israel. It would have stopped the fighting temporarily so more humanitarian aid could reach Gaza.
The six days of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have "achieved changes," Livni said.
"What we are doing now is changing the equation, making it a better reality to our citizens, stopping the rockets on Israel," Livni said after meeting with Sarkozy.
"We want to weaken Gaza," Livni said. "At the end of the day, Hamas is a problem, not only to Israel but to the entire Palestinian people," Livni said.
Since Israel launched the bombing campaign Saturday, Palestinian medical sources say at least 400 people, including 42 children, have been killed. Watch people run in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike »
Four Israelis, three of them civilians, have been killed and 56 wounded by Palestinian rocket fire, police, military and medical officials have said.
Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets into southern Israel. The Israeli military said four struck Beer Sheva on Wednesday, and at least two medium-range rockets struck the community Thursday. Beer Sheva is about 19 miles outside Gaza. Watch how emergency responders have dealt with the crisis »
Israel targeted the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza City overnight, gutting the structure. The ministries of justice and education and civil defense headquarters, to the city's west, also were bombed.
Meanwhile, in Rome, Italy, on Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI prayed for peace in Gaza.
"To Mary we entrust our profound desire to live in peace that rises from the heart of the great majority of the Israeli and Palestinian population, once again jeopardized by the massive outbreak of violence in the Gaza Strip in response to other violence," he said at a morning Mass.
