Gaza City - A Libyan ship set sail to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, carrying aid to the residents of the besieged enclave, a Palestinian official said.

Jamal al-Khodary, the head of the Popular Committee against the Siege on Gaza, said the ship set out on its voyage from the port city of Zuwarah on the Mediterranean Sea with 3,000 tons of medical supplies and humanitarian aid on board.

"The aid is donated by the Libyan state and its people," al- Khodary told reporters in Gaza, adding the voyage was one of a series of Arab attempts to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza.

Earlier this year, several vessels with foreign pro-Palestinian activists on board, succeeded in docking at Gaza's seaport as Israel stopped short of implementing threats to intercept them. Those journeys were organized the US-based Free Gaza movement.

Kuwaiti and Muslim legislators also plan to access Gaza via the sea.

Israel sealed off the Gaza Strip last year after the radical Islamic Hamas movement seized soled control in the territory and this was accompanied by a surge in rocket attacks from the strip.

It had eased the blockade following a June 19 truce brokered by Egypt, but for the past three weeks the closure has been all but total following a new flare-up of violence.

Since November 5, Israel has shut its border crossings with Gaza nearly completely, so far opening them only twice over the past three weeks to two truck convoys with essential humanitarian and medical supplies and to limited amounts of fuel for Gaza's power plant.

Israel said it would keep its crossings closed for the 22nd consecutive day Wednesday after militants fired another rocket into Israeli territory late Tuesday. (dpa)