Abdullah Taha's family has paid dearly for supporting Hamas attacks on Israelis.

His father, a Hamas founder, and two brothers languish in Israeli prisons, and another was killed in an airstrike.

But like many others, he is defiant. "I'm expecting a jet to bomb our home at any moment ... but we must continue fighting," he said Thursday, a day after an Israeli bomb leveled the Gaza City home of another Hamas leader.

Such talk may be the usual fiery rhetoric of a Hamas stalwart. Yet it is also a clear sign that Israel's stepped-up war on Hamas, unprecedented in intensity, has done little to deter the group's faithful.

The larger of two violent Islamic groups in Gaza, Hamas rejects the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East, which it considers Muslim territory. Hamas has claimed responsibility for most of the 102 suicide attacks against Israelis during nearly three years of violence, killing 411.

On Thursday, thousands marched in Gaza City, firing their rifles into the air, in support of Yasser Arafat following Israel's threat that it will "remove" the Palestinian leader. Arafat supporters handed out leaflets urging those from Hamas and other militant factions to "unite and resist this occupation and defend our land and our leader."

Hamas rejects Arafat's interim peace deals with Israel, but Israel charges that Arafat contributed to Hamas violence by turning the other way instead of disarming the militants.

The decision in principle to expel Arafat, accompanied by a pledge to hit hard at Hamas leaders and operatives, is just the latest step in a rapidly escalating conflict on the ashes of a failed cease-fire that broke down last month.

Hamas has promised fierce reprisals for Israeli airstrikes that have killed 13 Hamas members in three weeks. The airstrikes came in response to a Hamas suicide bombing that killed 22 on a Jerusalem bus last month.

Israeli leaders say such forceful action is needed to root out those dispatching suicide bombers.

On Saturday, an Israeli jet dropped a bomb on a house where the army said top Hamas leaders were meeting, lightly injuring the group's 68-year-old founder and spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and wounding others.

Hamas struck back Tuesday, when two members blew themselves up — one at a cafe and the other at a bus stop — killing 15 and wounding dozens.

Israel retaliated a day later, bombing the home of senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, killing his eldest son and a bodyguard. Zahar was wounded.

Taha and others insist the Hamas will not halt attacks on Israelis because of the airstrikes.

"If they kill my brother and jail my father, it will only make me more determined to seek revenge," he said. "Every Palestinian feels the same."

The Israeli army knows the Taha family well. A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they are informally known as "The Hamas Family."

The stout 27-year-old Abdullah Taha acknowledged he has given speeches to young Hamas recruits at picnics organized by the group and to other Hamas members during a stint in an Israeli jail this year.

Some Palestinians say Taha is part of a new generation of Hamas leaders.

"With so many killed by the Israelis, Hamas needs to groom new leaders," said Hassan Kashef, a Palestinian political analyst in Gaza who publishes the weekly al-Daar newspaper.

Taha's father, Mohammed, founded Hamas along with Yassin and three other leading Islamic clerics several days after the Dec. 9, 1987, outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

The army said the elder Taha led the group's military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, and along with his son Ayman was among some 400 suspected militants deported to Lebanon by Israel for a year in 1992, indicating the importance Israel ascribed to them.

Mohammed Taha's influence stretched across Gaza and into the West Bank, and the army said all of his five sons are active members of Hamas.

But only Abdullah Taha remains free to walk the streets of Gaza.

In March, Israeli soldiers raided the family's home in Bureij, arresting three Taha brothers and their father before blowing up the house.

The army said it acted after troops were attacked with gunfire, dozens of hand grenades and a shoulder-fired missile. Two soldiers were slightly wounded.

One of the brothers arrested, Ayman, ran a training camp for bomb makers, the army said. Abdullah Taha was released in July, but the others remain in prison.

Three months after the arrests, his brother Yasser, a leader of the group's military wing, was killed with his wife and young daughter in an Israeli airstrike. The army said Yasser, 30, was involved in terrorist attacks and served as deputy to the No. 1 on Israel's wanted list, Hamas operative Mohammed Deif.

Abdullah Taha says another brother, Hassan, also a member of Hamas' military wing, is in hiding. He is wanted by the Israelis for laying roadside bombs near troops.

"I am very proud of my brothers ... the Israelis are killing Palestinians every day. There must be revenge," said Taha, who lives in a rundown apartment across the street from the ruins of his bombed-out home.

A few miles away in Gaza City, a few young men praying at a mosque next to the rubble heap that was Zahar's home said the Israeli strikes have convinced them to join Hamas.

"I am readying myself spiritually," said Abdel El Nadeem, a 20-year-old student. "It is our only path."

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