A member of Hamas' armed wing was killed Thursday in a "mysterious explosion" in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, the group and Palestinian medical sources said.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades announced the death in a statement, naming the militant as 20-year-old Ali Nayef al-Haj.

An Israeli army bulldozer has damaged a communications cable and cut all phone and Internet networks in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said on Wednesday.

The blackout was caused late on Tuesday by a military bulldozer operating in Nahal Oz, close to the Palestinian enclave, Hamas telecommunications officials told AFP.

Israel's air force carried out three new raids on the Gaza Strip overnight, wounding three people, Palestinian witnesses and medics said on Friday.

Two adults and a child were hurt when a training camp of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military branch of Hamas that controls the tiny Palestinian coastal enclave, was hit in the north, the sources said.

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel on Wednesday, causing no damage or injuries, an Israeli police source told Agence France Presse.

The rocket, which landed in the southern Ashkelon region, comes amid increased fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

The Israeli navy's intelligence chief has said that militant groups close to the Jewish state, including Hizbullah and Hamas, are in possession of missiles capable of hitting all Israeli ports and offshore infrastructure such as oil rigs.

Brigadier General Yaron Levi spoke about the matter on Tuesday at a conference in Tel Aviv University, said Israeli daily Haaretz.

From Syria to Libya and Egypt, the uprisings and unrest gripping the Arab world have cast a pall on the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month when the traditional focus on piety will likely be eclipsed by more unrest.

Food prices — part of the economic hardships that catalyzed the ouster of the Egyptian and Tunisian leaders — are still climbing. And protesters have shown little patience for conciliatory gestures by governments after decades of empty promises.

Egypt turned back 450 travelers seeking to cross at the Rafah border point after an attack on a Sinai police station, Hamas officials said on Sunday.

The Hamas-run interior ministry said that the 450 would-be travelers, some of them patients seeking medical treatment, were turned back at the border on Saturday.

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon discussed the impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the situation in the West Bank and Gaza, in Lebanon and the region, said a U.N. spokesman.

"The secretary general urged an early resumption of meaningful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations," Spokesman Martin Nesirky said Friday.

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel on Thursday without causing injuries or damage, the Israeli military said.

The rocket landed in an open field in the Hof Ashkelon region, the military said, adding that the projectile was the 24th to hit Israel this month.

Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad will urge Arab nations to deliver pledged aid at a meeting of the Arab League on Tuesday to discuss the Palestinian Authority's financial crisis.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki told Agence France Presse that the meeting at the Arab League's Cairo headquarters had been convened at the request of president Mahmud Abbas.