Two Iranian warships, the first to enter the Mediterranean from the Suez Canal since 1979, docked at the Syrian port of Latakia on Thursday, an Iranian diplomatic source told Agence France Presse in Damascus.

Israel has put its navy on high alert, denounced the ships' arrival in the region as an Iranian power play and branded their voyage "a provocation."

Israeli jets bombed several Hamas camps in the Gaza Strip early Thursday after Palestinians fired a rocket that slammed into a house in a southern Israeli city, the military said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the air force strikes or from the rocket that landed in the city of Beersheva, the first time the city has been targeted since Israel's devastating 2009 Gaza offensive.

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.

The NATO military alliance said Wednesday it was monitoring two Iranian warships that have entered the Mediterranean Sea, a presence that has unnerved Israel.

"We follow events in the region and we follow these two Iranian warships with as much interest as we do any other warships in the region," said NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu.

The Israeli army has refused numerous requests from France for evidence to back up claims that Syria last year transferred long-range Scud missiles to Hizbullah, former French defense minister Herve Morin told The Jerusalem Post.

Last April, Israeli officials said Damascus had transferred the Scuds to Hizbullah in Lebanon. A month later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi that the Shiite party was storing the missiles inside Syrian military bases.

Israeli President Shimon Peres has said the anti-government protests sweeping the Arab world that have toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt are an "opportunity for peace" in the Middle East.

"We believe that the biggest guarantee of peace is having democracy in our neighbors. We are happy to witness this democratic revolution which is taking place in the Arab world," he said in an address to the Spanish parliament on Tuesday.

Israel put its navy on high alert and said it would respond immediately to any "provocation" as two Iranian warships sailed through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean on Tuesday.

The Iranian vessels entered the southeastern Mediterranean after going up the canal for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, reportedly en route for Syria, in a move taking them past Israeli territorial waters.

Israel and the United States on Tuesday carried out a successful test of the Arrow anti-missile system, intercepting a test ballistic missile, the Israeli defense ministry said.

The Arrow system "successfully detected and tracked the target and transferred information to the Citron Tree battle management control system," the statement said.

Israeli President Shimon Peres has said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah would be overthrown by their own people.

Peres made the remark on Monday at the headquarters of the Jewish community in Spain.

Tehran could activate Hizbullah fighters to attack Israel in an effort to stave off domestic pressure within Iran, according to assessments in the Israeli army’s Northern Command.

“The concern within the army is that if the regime in Tehran feels under pressure due to anti-government demonstrations, it will try to initiate an attack on an Israeli target – either overseas or near the border – to divert attention from its own troubles,” said The Jerusalem Post newspaper on Monday.