Israel arrests top Hamas militant

] An Israeli air strike has killed a Hamas military commander and rocket-maker in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist group that rules the Palestinian territory said on Saturday. Issa Batran, whose caravan was hit by a missile, was the first Hamas commander killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza since Israel wound up a three-week military offensive there in January 2009. Hundreds of Hamas supporters attended his funeral. The Israeli military said it launched air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza after a rocket fired from the enclave exploded in the city of Ashkelon. The air strikes also hit a training camp used by Hamas and smuggling tunnels along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. Several people were wounded by debris, Palestinian medics said. 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. Batran escaped an Israeli attack on his house in January 2009 during a devastating military offensive aimed at stopping daily rocket fire from Gaza into Israeli cities. His wife and children were killed in the attack. More [url:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE66U06K._CH_.2400[/url]