Palestinian medical workers say a six-month-old baby has died in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip after Israeli air strikes targeted the Interior Ministry overnight. The building was empty at the time, but the blast also damaged several nearby buildings, killing the infant and injuring at least 14 other people.

The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has condemned the bloodshed and called for Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel to stop.

Earlier in the day, a rocket, one of at least 20 launched from Gaza yesterday, killed a 47-year-old man in the car park of a college in the border town of Sderot, the first Israeli death of its kind for nine months.

Officials say four Palestinian civilians also died in retaliatory air strikes near the launch sites.
The upsurge began earlier in the day, when an Israeli missile killed five senior Hamas militants in Southern Gaza.

Medical officials say the van they were travelling in came under attack near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Hamas say those killed included an engineer and the commander of a rocket squad.