Tel Aviv/Davos - Israeli President Shimon Peres said Friday he regretted the incident at the World Economic Forum in Davos the day before when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of a debate over the Gaza Strip issue.

The Haaretz newspaper's internet site said Peres had made a telephone call with Erdogan Friday morning and assured him that he was "very sorry" about the incident.

"Friends can have disputes among each other," Peres reportedly told the Turkish premier. "I have always had great respect for the Turkish Republic and for you as its prime minister."

Cairo - Palestinian militant groups on Thursday said they plan to respond in kind to recent Israeli military strikes within the Gaza Strip.

"These strikes represent an escalating offensive of the Zionists that targets the Palestinian people. This reflects that the enemy has no interest in peace in the region," Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"The military branch of Hamas has a right to respond to the strikes. The leaders of our military branch are devising that response now," Barhoum said.

Madrid- Spain's National Court will investigate a 2002 Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip, with then defence minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and six army members suspected of a crime against humanity, judge Fernando Andreu announced Thursday.

Andreu accepted a complaint lodged by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Israel dropped a one-ton bomb into a Gaza City neighbourhood housing Hamas leader Salah Shehade on July 22, 2002. Shehade and 14 other people were killed in the attack.

Ramallah- New US Middle East env

Davos, Switzerland - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on the international community Thursday to provide quick assistance for the people in conflict-torn Gaza Strip.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ban issued a so-called flash appeal for urgently needed assistance worth 613 million dollars in order to help the 1.4 million Gaza residents.

Jerusalem, Jan 29 : Israeli Air Force jet has struck a Hamas' weapons manufacturing facility in the Rafah area in response to a Kassam rocket being fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel.

The air strike was the Israel's first attack on a building inside the Gaza Strip since the end of Operation Cast Lead.

"As the sole authority in the Gaza Strip, Hamas bears full responsibility of all terror originating from within its area of control," the Israel Government said in a statement.