An Israeli air strike has destroyed the Palestinian Authority’s Hamas-controlled Foreign Ministry.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A bomb dropped by an Israeli warplane destroyed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry building in Gaza City early Thursday.

The bomb collapsed the building and caused widespread destruction in the area. The Palestinian foreign minister is Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar.

The Israeli military confirmed it carried out an airstrike on the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, noting that it is “led by Hamas.”

At least three people were wounded in the strike, which took place after 1:30 a.m. The injured were in neighboring buildings, and it was not known if anyone was in the ministry at the time. Ambulances and rescue services were racing to the scene.

In another air strike earlier, master Hamas bombmaker Mohammed Deif, who spent ten years in hiding and recently emerged talking trash, was almost sent to meet Allah as he hung out with other Hamas leaders surrounded by human shields: Top Hamas leader hurt in Israeli bombing.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A Hamas militant leader who has topped Israel’s most-wanted list for a decade was badly wounded and underwent four hours of spinal surgery Wednesday after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike, security officials said.

The top fugitive, Mohammed Deif, could end up paralyzed, Palestinian security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss his condition. Wednesday’s blast marked the army’s fourth attempt to kill Deif, held responsible for suicide bombings in Israel. In a 2002 missile strike, he lost an eye.

Nine members of one family were killed in Wednesday’s airstrike, with an Israeli F-16 warplane dropping a quarter-ton bomb on a home in a crowded Gaza City neighborhood. The strike was by far the deadliest in Israel’s 15-day military campaign in Gaza, launched after Hamas-allied militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier.

Israel’s air force targeted the two-story house of Nabil Abu Salmiyeh, a Hamas activist and university lecturer, after getting intelligence information that the leaders of Hamas’ military wing, responsible for the abduction of the soldier, were meeting there. Palestinian security officials said seven or eight top Hamas officials were present.