Gaza - Egypt has postponed a planned inter-Palestinian dialogue as several factions, mainly Hamas, have decided to boycott it, Palestinian sources said on Saturday.

Ramattan, a local news agency, quoted Palestinian officials as saying that Egypt told them the dialogue, which was scheduled to start on Sunday, was being postponed.

Twelve Palestinian factions had been invited to the dialogue.

Meanwhile, a Hamas official said his movement decided to boycott the dialogue, blaming the rival Fatah movement headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Gaza - A third voyage to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip successfully completed on Saturday morning as the "Dignity" ship docked in the harbor of the Islamists-ruled territory.

Palestinian witnesses said the ship, which set sail Friday from Cyprus, berthed at 0930 am (0730 GMT) in Gaza fishing port with a handful of Hamas officials and tens of Palestinians welcoming the delegation.

The yacht carries 11 journalists, human rights and peace activists in addition to 12 European parliamentarians who Egypt barred from traveling to Gaza through its territories last month.

Gaza City  - A barrage of rockets hit Israeli towns early Saturday as Palestinian militants again breached an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

On Saturday morning, the Islamic Jihad faction said it fired 10 homemade rockets into Israeli cities near the Gaza Strip.

The al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the less-influential Islamic Jihad, said six of the rockets were fired at Sderot city, north-east of the Gaza Strip, and four missiles were aimed at the coastal city of Ashkelon.

Gaza  - The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement said Thursday that any extension of the nearly-five-month-old truce in the Gaza Strip depended on the level of commitment Israel showed to it.

The Egyptian-mediated truce, which came into being on June 19, has been battered in recent days by an Israeli raid to destroy a tunnel being built under the Gaza border, and subsequent militant rocket attacks from the salient.

Gaza - An Israeli air strike late Wednesday night killed one Palestinian militant in the northern Gaza strip, medical officials and witnesses said.

An Israeli military spokesman in Tel Aviv confirmed the attack, saying it was aimed at a group which had earlier in the evening launched one missile at southern Israel, and was about to launch another.

Three other militants were wounded in the strike, which took place east of the Jebaliya refugee camp. The fatality was identified as Ghassan al-Taramssi, 23, a member of the Islamic Jihad organization.

Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Gaza  - While Israelis reacted with a mixture of excitement and trepidation to the election of Barack Obama as US president Wednesday, enthusiasm was noticeably lacking among Palestinians.

"American policy is very clear and will not change. It is totally biased toward Israel," said Mohammed Midyeh, a mathematics lecturer in the West Bank city of Ramallah, expressing a common opinion.