JERUSALEM AND GAZA CITY — Israeli airstrikes Friday killed at least eight Palestinians in the Gaza Strip amid mounting speculation that a long-threatened land invasion of the coastal territory would begin soon.
As warplanes swooped overhead, supporters of the militant group Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for 18 months, laid to rest one of the movement's senior spiritual and military leaders, an advocate of suicide bombings, in a public funeral.
Hamas and other factions continued rocket launches toward southern Israeli towns, striking several buildings but causing only minor injuries. Gazan militants have extended their rocket range deeper into the Jewish state, killing three civilians and one soldier during the last week.
In the same period, Israeli attacks have killed more than 420 Palestinians, including more than 60 civilians, and injured an estimated 2,000, according to local medical sources.
Israeli jets Friday targeted a prominent mosque in the Jabaliya refugee camp, along with several homes that the Israelis said belonged to Hamas operatives.
Thousands of Israeli military personnel remained massed on the Gaza border, as Israel temporarily opened the Erez crossing to allow hundreds of foreign passport holders to flee. Many of the evacuees were foreign-born women married to Palestinians, and their children.
In Tehran, a senior Iranian official and ranking cleric told worshipers that Hamas possessed a "new weapon" to counter an Israeli ground invasion. The advanced weapon would allow the militant group to target tanks "from a long distance," said former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of Iran's powerful Expediency Council.
He also said the Muslim world should help Gazans with military as well as other kinds of support.
U.S. and Israeli officials accuse Iran of providing weapons to Hamas in Gaza, which has been pummeled by seven days of Israeli airstrikes.
Among the dead Friday were Mohammed Astal, 11, his brother Abed Rabbo Astal, 8, and their 10-year-old cousin Walid Astal. Witnesses said the boys were standing outside their home in the western Gaza city of Khan Yunis chewing on stalks of sugar cane when an Israeli missile struck.
"Why they were targeted? There were neither armed Hamas positions nor governmental compounds," said the victims' uncle Mohammed Astal. "For what was this bombing? I want the world of democracy to tell me."
