Prime minister Ismail Haniya has defended the resumption of anti-Israeli rocket attacks by his radical Islamist movement Hamas's armed wing as a move to protect the Palestinian people.

"Our actions on the ground are designed to protect the interests of the Palestinian people," Haniya told reporters Monday.

"We have appealed in vain for a halt to the aggressions by the Israeli occupation against our people."

Dozens of rockets were fired by Hamas over the weekend following the death of eight Palestinians on a beach in the northern Gaza Strip, apparently the result of an Israeli shell.

Hamas, which formed its first government in March, had largely held off such attacks since the start of last year under the terms of an agreement with the moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Israel, which has assassinated several heads of Hamas in the past, issued thinly veiled threats against the current leadership over the weekend.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz said that the army had "many means at our disposal, and will use them against any element implicated in the firing (of rockets), at both the planning level and in carrying them out."

Haniya however was unimpressed. "These repeated threats reveal the political heresy of certain Israeli officials," he told reporters.

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