"I appeal to the international community, the United Nations and the quartet to stop this military folly through which they (the Israelis) are looking to destroy our holy ground and our people," Arafat told journalists here.

Arafat was making his first response to five separate air strikes on the Gaza Strip on Monday which claimed the lives of 10 people and wounded some 70 others. Four of the wounded have been declared clinically dead.

The latest violence has further deepened gloom over the prospects of progress in the Middle East "roadmap", a peace plan sponsored by the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia, known as the quartet.

Palestinian sources said most of the victims in the five raids targeting the Islamic radical movement Hamas were civilians, although the movement's Ezzedin al-Qassam armed wing lost at least two militants in the raids.

An Israeli spokesman said six of those killed on Monday were members of Hamas.

The deadliest attack hit late Monday in Nusseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, where seven Palestinians were killed and 40 wounded, 10 of them seriously, according to Palestinian security sources.

An Apache combat helicopter scored a direct hit on a car with a missile, witnesses said, adding that the target was local Ezzedin al-Qassam chief Imad Akel, who apparently survived while other passengers were wounded.

A second missile struck and killed residents who came to the rescue of the passengers, the witnesses said.

Less than an hour later, a raid on a building in the Shujaya district of Gaza City which had already been hit earlier in the day wounded five people, security sources said. The Israeli army said the building was being used as an arms factory.

Two other air strikes Monday morning killed two Qassam activists as well as a civilian, Palestinian hospital sources said.

Hamas vowed to avenge the attacks.

The Israeli military reported that three of the group's makeshift Qassam rockets were fired Tuesday evening at the southern Israeli town of Sderot from Gaza without causing casualties. Four mortar rounds were also aimed at a Jewish settlement

Thousands of people attended the funerals for the victims in Nusseirat on Tuesday, bringing the refugee town to a standstill.

"We are warning all the collaborators and we are warning the Israelis. Our highest goal is jihad (holy war)," one Hamas official told the cheering crowd.

Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei said in a statement that he shared their "pain and anger" while calling for the UN Security Council to adopt "appropriate resolutions to save our people."

Qorei himself was in Cairo Tuesday for talks with Egyptian leaders on the worsening situation in the region.

His visit comes as US Secretary of State Colin Powell was expected in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks with President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday. It was not known whether Qorei would also travel to Sharm el-Sheikh.

The Gaza strikes have led to splits within Israeli ranks, with one minister in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition cabinet calling for victims to be compensated and a public apology.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the strikes "not only bring added suffering to populations, they also contribute to increasing tensions and putting at risk security in the region."

A senior Israeli Air Force officer Tuesday defended them, saying they had all hit their targets and that the number of casualties had been exaggerated.

"These five attacks yesterday hit all the right targets accurately," said the officer on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, nine Palestinians were wounded, one seriously, when Israeli army jeeps and armoured vehicles entered Ramallah late Tuesday and imposed a curfew in the centre of the city, witnesses and Israeli sources.

Medical sources had earlier said another five people were slightly injured after the Israelis opened fire with rubber-coated bullets after they were pelted with stones.

The troops surrounded the landmark Abdul Nasser mosque and ordered people inside to leave in groups of four and present their identity papers to soldiers, the witnesses added.

The Israeli army did not give any details on the reason for the incursion but it comes two days after three soldiers were shot dead while on patrol nearby.

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