Jerusalem ? The Israeli air force fired rockets Sunday evening that hit the Gaza home of an elected Hamas legislator, killing at least eight people and wounding more than a dozen.

The lawmaker, Khalil al-Haya, was not at home during the mid-evening strike in Gaza City, which witnesses said destroyed the family guesthouse. Palestinian hospital officials said all but one of those killed, who ranged in age from 16 to 66 years old, had the last name of al-Haya.

“These crimes will not stop us or our people from continuing the struggle and resistance,” al-Haya, the head of Hamas’s parliamentary bloc, said later at Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

But Israeli military officials said al-Haya was not the intended target. They said Israeli aircraft fired on a “terrorist cell” in the Sharjiya neighborhood where al-Haya lives. Israeli officials said one of the men killed was Sameh Ferwanah, 28, a senior Hamas military official from Gaza who has been involved in rocket and shooting attacks on Israel. The name appeared on the list of dead provided by Palestinian medical officials.

“We know from initial reports that of the terrorist cells we targeted, all five were hit,” said Capt. Noa Meir, an Israeli military spokeswoman. “They were the target and they were hit. Anything else that happened, that was not our intention.”

The strike followed another day of rocket fire into Israel from Gaza, along with warnings from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the military response would intensify unless the attacks stopped.

About 35 Palestinians, most of them Hamas gunmen, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes over the past six days. On Sunday evening, an Israeli tank near Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza fired on a group of men who had just launched two rockets toward Israel, military officials said. Palestinian hospital officials said the tank shell seriously wounded five members of the al-Masri family, including several children.

Today, an Israeli airstrike just after midnight on a post used by the Hamas military wing in Gaza killed at least one gunman and wounded several others.