The Israeli navy seized a boat carrying weapons apparently destined for militant groups in Gaza, a military spokeswoman told AFP on Tuesday.

The vessel, boarded as it sailed southwards some 200 nautical miles off the Israeli coast, was carrying "various weapons," she said, without saying exactly when it was seized.

A senior officer in Israel's Southern Command has said Iran and Hizbullah frequently send experts to the Gaza Strip to train Hamas forces, crossing through illicit tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border.

Some foreign experts are even stationed in Gaza, he said.

An Israeli tank wounded eleven Palestinians, two critically, when it opened fire on a group of militants east of Gaza City on Wednesday, an emergency services spokesman said.

"Eleven Palestinians were injured by tank shell in an area east of Gaza City. Two of them are in critical condition," Adham Abu Selmiya of the Hamas-run rescue service told Agence France Presse, saying they had been taken to the city's Shifa hospital.

Three Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli troops early on Thursday in an area near Gaza's northern border with Israel, officials on both sides said.

Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for the Hamas-run emergency services, said the men died after being hit by a tank shell and machine gun fire in an area called Al-Waha which lies close to both the shore and the northern border with Israel.

A major Gaza hospital named after Hosni Mubarak is to be rebaptized "Tahrir" after the Cairo square at the center of the uprising which felled the Egyptian leader.

"The Mubarak hospital for children in Khan Yunis is to be renamed Tahrir hospital in honor of the Egyptian revolution in Tahrir Square," Youssef al-Mudallah, director general of the Hamas-run health ministry, told Agence France Presse.

The Palestinian cabinet decided on Tuesday to hold local elections on July 9, in what will be the first Palestinian vote since 2006, a source close to the government said.

"The Palestinian cabinet has decided that July 9 will be the date for local elections," he told Agence France Presse, saying a formal statement would be issued shortly.

Israel's prime minister has said Iran wants to take advantage of the chaos in Egypt to create "another Gaza" there and warned that Islamic parties have already taken over power by democratic means in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza.

Speaking before the Israeli parliament on Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu said he expects any new government in Egypt to honor its three-decade-long peace agreement with Israel.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a "historic mistake" by rebuffing a peace offer made during negotiations in 2008.

Excerpts from an upcoming memoir by Olmert were published Friday in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.

Israel's minister of strategic affairs said Thursday the Lebanese Hizbullah guerrilla group has infiltrated agents into the Gaza Strip to train Palestinian militants.

Gaza is ruled by the Hamas militant group, which, like Hezbollah, is sworn to Israel's destruction.

A rocket fired by militants in Gaza landed in southern Israel early on Monday, in the first incidence of firing since armed Palestinian groups there agreed to observe a truce last week.

The projectile, a home-built Qassam rocket, caused no injuries or damage when it landed in the Shaar HaNegev regional council which flanks Gaza's northeastern border.