Tension between Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas and the Palestinian security forces mounted on Thursday night after interior minister Nasser Yousef declared a state of emergency and ordered the use of force to stop militants firing rockets at Israel.

In a shootout afterwards, five Hamas militants were injured by gunfire from Palestinian security forces in northern Gaza Strip.

"Instructions to the security forces are clear. They should carry out every firm needed measure including the use of force to prevent any action of firing rockets," Yousef told reporters in Gaza.

Yousef also declared a state of emergency on Thursday night and deployed police and security reinforcements all over the Gaza Strip, mainly in northern Gaza, to stop militants firing rockets.

Yousef gave the order after holding an urgent meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who arrived in Gaza on Thursday. The meeting was attended by chiefs of Palestinian police and security apparatuses.

The meeting came shortly after a homemade rocket fired by Palestinian militants in northern Gaza Strip killed a 20-year-old Israeli woman in Nativ Ha'asara, a collective farm near the border with northern Gaza Strip.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed ring of the ruling Fatah movement led by Abbas, claimed responsibility for the rocket attack.

Hours before the rocket attack, Israeli troops shot dead a local commander of the Palestinian militant group in a raid on the West Bank city of Nablus.

Israeli forces launched counterattack on Palestinian militants after a suicide bomber from the Islamic Jihad killed five Israelis in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a masked Hamas militant said in a news briefing in Gaza City that five militants were injured by the security forces gunfire, one of them in serious condition, adding that Hamas militants assaulted a Palestinian police station, burned it and destroyed three police vehicles.

"Resistance is legal and as long as the Zionists are violating the Hudna, or truce, no one would prevent us from responding to these violations, and we would cut the arms of those who would try to halt us," said the militant.

Palestinian interior ministry said in a statement that the militants opened fire at the security officers who told them that they are not allowed to launch rockets at Israel.

The statement added that the security officers shot back in defence, wounding five Hamas militants.

The interior ministry held Hamas responsible for the current tension and called for all parties to restrain.

Source: Xinhua