Israelis and Palestinians woke up to a fourth day of violence on Sunday, with militants firing 17 rockets into Israel despite an unusually quiet night in Gaza just hours after a rocket killed an Israeli.

Tensions in and around the Gaza Strip have soared since Thursday when militants staged a series of bloody shooting attacks in the Negev desert, killing eight Israelis and prompting a wave of bloody tit-for-tat exchanges.

Eleven Yemeni tribesmen were killed overnight in two suicide attacks in the southern province of Abyan, a stronghold of Al-Qaida, tribal sources and medics told AFP on Sunday.

Tribal sources accused Al-Qaida members of carrying out the attacks in two villages of Abyan province, where Yemeni tribesmen and the army have been battling militants from the "Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law)" who are believed to be close to the Al-Qaida network.

Israeli troops on Sunday arrested 120 Hamas members in the southern West Bank just hours after the faction's Gaza branch fired rockets into Israel, Palestinian security sources said.

Palestinian security sources said troops fanned out across the southern West Bank in an overnight operation which kicked off just hours after Hamas's armed wing in Gaza fired rockets into southern Israel, breaking a truce brokered in April.

A beleaguered Moammar Gadhafi urged supporters Sunday to "march by the millions" and quash a months-long uprising, as strong explosions rocked Tripoli amid fighting between rebels and regime supporters.

The blasts were heard shortly after 4:00 am (0200 GMT) in the heart of the city as NATO warplanes flew overhead, an AFP journalist said. The targets were not immediately identifiable but witnesses reported clashes in several quarters between insurgents and Gadhafi supporters.

Embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad is to address the nation in a television interview, as his forces continued to kill anti-regime protesters Saturday despite demands from world powers for him to put an end to the repression.

Assad will give an interview on Syrian television on Sunday "about the situation in Syria, the continuing process of reforms, the repercussions of American and Western political and economic pressures and a vision of the future for Syria in the current regional and international context," state news agency SANA said.

World powers warned Saturday there is a "risk of escalation" after three days of fighting over Gaza that has already seen critical relations between Israel and Egypt plummet.

The European Union, Russia, the U.N. and the United States urged the region's key players to hit the brakes, as rockets fired from Gaza wounded three people -- ironically Palestinians in Israel -- and the Jewish state's air force responded with attacks on the coastal enclave.

Israel and the Palestinians battled each other for a third day on Saturday, with an Israeli man killed and two children hurt, as well as three Palestinians.

As the fighting continued, world powers trying to broker peace in the Middle East warned that there is a "risk of escalation" and urged key players in the region to hit the brakes.

Human Rights Watch on Saturday called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to "immediately" intervene to stop Syria's crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

The New York-based rights group wrote a letter to OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu asking the 57-nation body to protest Syria's actions and send a delegation there to probe possible human rights violations.

Israel said on Saturday it had received no official notification from Egypt that it was recalling its ambassador to Tel Aviv after Egyptian state television reported that claim earlier in the day.

"At no time has Israel been officially notified of a recall of the Egyptian ambassador," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

Egypt called on Israel Saturday to immediately halt punitive strikes on the Palestinian Gaza Strip after militants carried out deadly attacks in Israel.

"Egypt denounces the use of force against civilians in any circumstance and strongly advises Israel to immediately stop its military operations against Gaza," a foreign ministry statement said.