Israeli strike kills Hamas commander

Issa Batran was killed by a missile that hit his caravan in the central Gaza Strip. Israel launched air strikes against targets in Gaza on Friday after a rocket fired from the enclave exploded in the city of Ashkelon.

The air strikes also hit a training camp in Gaza City used by Hamas and smuggling tunnels along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. Several people were wounded by debris in Gaza City.

Hamas said Batran was a rocket maker and the head of its military wing in the central Gaza Strip. The militant group has a rocket arsenal of crude, homemade projectiles and longer-range rockets smuggled in through tunnels under the border with Egypt.
Israel carried out the strikes after militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Ashkelon on Israel's Mediterranean coast, blowing out the windows of an apartment block and damaging parked cars in a residential area.