Sights and sounds of Israel's Gaza offensive

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli air strikes rocked the Gaza Strip for a sixth straight day, one of them killing a senior Hamas leader in his home, and Palestinian militants fired rockets deep into southern Israel.

Here are some sights and sounds of the conflict.

Hundreds of Palestinians screaming for revenge gathered around rescue workers who pulled the badly mangled bodies of a Hamas leader and his family from the rubble of their house destroyed in an Israeli air strike.

The missile strike killed Nizar Rayyan, a 49-year-old cleric regarded as one of Hamas's most hardline political leaders. Two of his four wives and seven of his children died with him.

Soon after, Israeli television broadcasted archive footage of Rayyan, a preacher known to have mentored suicide bombers, dressed in military fatigues and carrying a Kalashnikov rifle and an RPG launcher, joining Hamas fighters on patrols.

-----------

"We didn't declare war on the residents of Gaza, but against Hamas we will act with an iron fist," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on a visit to Beersheba, the city Israel regards as the capital of its southern Negev region.

A rocket from Gaza hit a schoolroom in the city on Wednesday, the first Hamas attack at such range. Local officials had ordered the school closed and the classroom was empty.

------------

In Tehran, Iranian protesters demanding help for Gaza had no Israeli embassy to target, so they went for the embassy of Jordan, one of only two Arab countries -- the other is Egypt -- which has full relations with Israel. "You Jordanian traitors. Shame, shame," they chanted, demanding the embassy be closed. They scuffled with riot police, some hurling shoes in an Arab gesture of contempt made popular in Baghdad during the last visit of President Bush.

----------

"There are sirens but no protection," said a resident of Rahat, a Bedouin town in southern Israel. "Where should I run? Other than a bus stop, where should I go?"

Tens of thousands of Bedouin, once desert nomads, live in informal shanty towns in the Negev desert region. Rahat, about 25 km (15 miles) away from the Gaza border, was struck by a Hamas rocket for the first time this week. Residents say the town lacks blast shelters and protective measures that other, official southern towns have.

The rocket hit a greenhouse.

---------

Film broadcast on Israeli television showed a Palestinian man yelling to a reporter from the balcony of a building in the Gaza Strip that was damaged during an air strike.

Q - What are doing in the area?

A - I live in a house here. There was a strike on a government office and our building was also damaged. There are kids here and my wife is here. This is a residential area.

Q - You were told to leave the area two days ago. Why did you return after the bombing?

A - I came to check the situation and try to clear some of the damage in the house as much as possible.

(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Giles Elgood)