Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas expressed Sunday his determination to stop rocket attacks by Palestinian militants who in the latest strike on Sunday injured at least four Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip.

At a press conference, Abbas said that "we want to prevent Qassam rocket fire at all costs."

Meanwhile, Abbas warned that "Americans told us that there is an Israeli intention to invade Gaza," and "if this happens, everything will be damaged."

Also on Sunday, Saeed Seyam, political leader of the Hamas militant group in Gaza renewed a commitment to a five-month-old truce deal but vowed to continue to "respond" to Israeli violence.

"We are committed to the Cairo understandings," Seyam told reporters regarding a deal forged with Abbas to support a ceasefire with Israel.

"We are committed to a conditional calm," Seyam told reporters after meeting Egyptian officials in Gaza to discuss an upsurge in violence that threatens to endanger Israel's planned Gaza pullout next month.

"And we reiterate the right of our people to resistance and self-defence and our right to respond to Israeli attacks on our people," said Seyam.

In response to recently stepped up rocket attacks on Israeli targets, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Sunday ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to use "all force" to keep right-wing protesters from entering the Gaza Strip to obstruct the implementation of the pullout.

As IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz was speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Sharon interrupted him and said resolutely "you must act with all severity," local press reported.

"I instruct to use all force to prevent the entry of protesters and to prevent assaults on IDF soldiers," Sharon was quoted as saying.

On Sunday, in a new round of homemade rocket attack by Hamas, at least four Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip were injured, local radio said.

The radio quoted an Israeli army spokesman as saying that four settlers in the Gaza settlement of Naveh Dekalim sustained light or moderate wounds and were taken to an Israeli hospital outside the Gaza Strip.

Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks, saying its militants launched several homemade mortar shells on the settlement in revenge for the Israeli aggressions against the Palestinians.

In the morning of the same day, a leading Hamas member was shot dead by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, witnesses said.

Palestinian militant rocket attacks on Israeli targets have dropped sharply since Palestinian and Israeli leaders declared a ceasefire in February and major Palestinian militant groups were persuaded to abide by it.

But new violence flared up last week and Palestinian militant attacks killed five Israelis in separate incidents, further puncturing the shaky truce deal.

Militant groups including Hamas have stepped up rocket attacks while Israel has renewed raids and targeted killings, vowing a "harsh" response to militant attacks.

In view of the escalating violence in the area, a high-ranking Egyptian security delegation arrived in Gaza on Sunday in a bid to mediate between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Hamas to stop their ongoing internal crisis.

The Palestinian Interior Ministry said in a statement that the Egyptian delegation is headed by General Mustafa al-Beheiri, a deputy to Egypt's intelligence security chief Omer Suleiman.

The delegation will first hold talks with Palestinian leader Abbas, who is currently in Gaza, and then meet with leaders of Hamas, said the statement.

Tensions between Hamas and the PNA has been escalating after Interior Minister Nasser Yousef ordered the use of force against militants firing rockets at Israel and the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Source: Xinhua