In a direct message to Hamas’ interior minister in Gaza, Israeli jet fighters destroyed his office early today, intensifying an air invasion while delaying a broad ground offensive to give Arab mediators a last chance to gain the release of a kidnapped soldier.

A Palestinian militant leader today said a captured Israeli soldier was being held in a “secure place,” and he claimed that his group also seized a Jewish settler in the West Bank.

ABOUT 100 masked militants stormed the heavily guarded home of Gaza’s former security chief early yesterday, dragged him out in his pyjamas and killed him in a burst of gunfire — a brazen challenge to the Palestinian Authority days before Israel was to hand over Gaza.

A Palestinian militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, today claimed responsibility for killing a former Gaza security chief in his home.

Palestinian security officials said an Israeli helicopter has fired three rockets at a Palestinian car, killing the driver.