An Israeli air raid in the southern Gaza Strip has killed a leader from the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, which took control of the Gaza Strip in June.

Mohammed Mutar was killed in Rafah by a missile launched late on Saturday by a drone aircraft, a medical source said.

No one was injured in a second air raid against an Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades position in Khan Yunis, Hamas said on Saturday.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the two raids and said Mutar was suspected of involvement in the "transfer of illicit arms" across the Gaza-Egypt border.

The official said they had acted on information provided by Israel's internal security service.

Israel also pounded Gaza on Thursday, killing seven people days after a bomb attack claimed by the Strip's Hamas rulers.

Saturday's death brings to 6,130 the number of people killed since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP count.

Earlier on Saturday, an eight-year-old boy was seriously wounded when a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said it carried out the attack that wounded the boy.

Twelve Israelis have been killed by the rockets in the past six years.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinians carry the body of Hamas militant after he was killed in an Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza Strip February 5, 2008. (Reuters)