A senior leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) was killed along with his wife and children in the Gaza Strip by Israeli air strike on Thursday, Al Jazeera TV said.

The report said that the senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan was killed in an Israeli air strike, the six-day-old offensive.

The air strike killed Rayyan along with four other people, including members of his family, local medic said.

Rayyan was an outspoken advocate of renewing suicide bombings against the Jewish state.

So far from last Saturday the bombing attack on Gaza started, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed and some 1,700 others wounded.

(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2009)