Israel pounds Gaza, threatens to kill Hamas leaders

GAZA, May 21 (Reuters) - Israel bombed a Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip on Monday in an escalating air campaign and a senior cabinet minister said all the group's leaders should be killed to try to end cross-border rocket fire.

"I don't distinguish between those who carry out the (rocket) attacks and those who give the orders. I say we have to put them all in the crosshairs," National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said on Israel Radio. Israeli aircraft carried out a series of attacks in the territory early on Monday, a day after killing eight Palestinians, but not their target, in an air strike on a Hamas politician's home in Gaza.

Palestinian officials said one man was killed in a stone mason's shop that Israel described as a rocket manufacturing facility. The air strikes also knocked out electricity for about 50,000 people.

Israel's security cabinet decided on Sunday to escalate military action in response to constant rocket attacks from Gaza, which have caused injuries but no deaths and have put political pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to act.

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