Tel Aviv  - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak slapped a 48-hour closure on the West Bank, preventing Palestinians from entering Israel, beginning at one minute to midnight Thursday, the Israeli a

Gaza City - A senior Hamas leader, his wife and his eight children were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip Thursday, hospital officials confirmed.

Nizar Rayan and his family were killed when his house was struck in the northern Gaza refugee camp of Jabaliya, Kamal Odwan hospital in the refugee camp confirmed.

He was the most senior Hamas leader killed so far in six days of ferocious Israeli airstrikes. Most top leaders of the movement have gone into hiding.

Berlin  - A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected criticism Thursday of her forthright support for Israel during the conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Merkel's assessment, offered during her New Year address, matched that of the European Union foreign ministers, the spokesman said.

She had made it clear that she too desired a truce in the fighting as soon as possible, he added.

"However conditions have to be met, and the most important condition in the view of the chancellor is that Israel's security must be secured," said the spokesman at her office.

Beirut  - A Lebanese parliamentary leader on Thursday accused Israel of trying to end "resistance" in the Gaza Strip and urged Arab states to cut diplomatic ties to Israel.

Speaking before a meeting of the Arab Parliamentarian Council, Shiite House Speaker Nabih Berri called for assistance to help Palestinians facing an Israeli onslaught.

Paris/Jerusalem - Israel will continue its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip until it reaches a point where "the operation exhausts itself" and militants no longer fire rockets at the Jewish state, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday.

"It's not a case of a timetable, but a case of targets, and each day we have to do as new situation assessment," she told Israel's Channel 2 news from Paris where she met French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

Riyadh  - Saudi Arabian King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz called on Thursday for an urgent national aid campaign for the people in Gaza, Saudi news agency reported.

Since the start of Israeli air strikes on Gaza on Saturday, some 400 people have died and more than 2,100 have been injured.

King Abdullah said that the aid campaign will be supervised by Saudi Minister of Interior Naif bin Abdul-Aziz.

Saudi Arabia has sent aid planes with medicine to Gaza. It also allocated special planes to evacuate the injured from Gaza to Saudi hospitals for treatment.

Saudi Arabia and other US allied Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan have come under fire in the Arab world for not doing enough to help Gaza.