By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - A rocket launched from the Hamas-run GazaStrip killed a man in Israel on Wednesday, the first such deathin nine months, and Israeli air strikes killed six Palestinianmilitants and five civilians in the territory.
The rocket, one of 40 Hamas said it fired in response to anair strike, seemed certain to increase public pressure on PrimeMinister Ehud Olmert to order tougher Israeli military actionin the Gaza Strip that might include a widescale groundoperation.
As well as targeting armed men on the ground, Israel's airforce bombed the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, witnesses said.The blast damaged nearby buildings, killing a 6-month-old babyand wounding at least 14 other people, hospital officials said.
The mounting violence could complicate peace talks betweenIsrael and President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authoritywhich Washington hopes can lead to a deal on statehood thisyear.
"The Hamas terror endangers not only the lives of Israeliand Palestinian civilians, but also the peace and stability ofthe entire region," Israel's Foreign Ministry said in astatement which called rocket salvoes a "war crime".
Earlier, five senior members of Hamas were killed when thevan in which they were travelling was attacked from the airnear the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, medical officialssaid.
Local residents who knew the men said some had undergonetraining in Syria or Iran and returned home after Hamasbreached Gaza's border with Egypt last month in defiance of anIsraeli blockade of the territory. Hamas denied they had leftGaza.
Hamas, which seized Gaza in June after defeating Abbas'sforces, hit back. They were the first Hamas rockets fired intwo weeks, although allied militants had maintained dailysalvoes. Four Palestinian civilians -- two men and two youths,medics said -- died in air strikes near launch sites innorthern Gaza.
The Israeli who died was identified as a 47-year-old manattending college in Sderot, a town near Gaza's border.
No one had been killed in Israel by a Palestinian rocketstrike since May. Such attacks are launched almost daily fromGaza, which Israeli soldiers and settlers quit in 2005.
ROCKET SALVOES
"The (rocket) bombardment came in response to the Zionistmassacre committed this morning in Khan Younis which led to themartyrdom of five of our best fighters," a Hamas statementsaid.
A militant from the allied Islamic Jihad died in a separateIsraeli attack east of Bureij in central Gaza, medics said.
Hamas, shunned by the West for refusing to recognise theJewish state, says attacks from Gaza are a response to Israelimilitary raids in the territory and the occupied West Bank.
The salvoes would end if Israel stopped all such militaryactivity and lifted its blockade, Hamas says.
In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli forces killed onemilitant from Abbas's Fatah faction and wounded and detainedfour others, a Palestinian official said.
The spike in violence provided a troubling prelude to thelatest visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whoseaides confirmed she will arrive on Monday for several days oftalks on the U.S.-sponsored peace process with Abbas andOlmert.
Rice and U.S. President George W. Bush are racing againsttime to conclude a deal before Bush leaves office in January.
Rice's spokesman Tom Casey played down the fighting. "Therealways are going to be things that will happen that will tryand distract or sideline parts of these discussions but theimportant thing is that ... we have two leaders who arecommitted to moving forward," he said.
He repeated that Israel had a right to defend itself butadded: "We remain concerned about the civilian population inGaza that continues to suffer as a result of Hamas's misrule."
Senior U.S. officials said Rice was expected to announcenext week tens of millions of dollars in new U.S. funding toease humanitarian hardship in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Gaza's water authority warned people to boil water becauseit was running short of chlorine due to Israeli restrictions.The Israeli army said a request for chlorine had been made onlybelatedly and that it was working on supplying it.
(Additional reporting by Atef Sa'ad and Labib Nasir inNablus, Ari Rabinovitch, Alastair Macdonald and Avida Landau inJerusalem and Sue Pleming in Washington, Writing by JeffreyHeller in Jerusalem; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
