JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly rejected on Monday US calls to freeze Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank. We cant freeze life in the settlements, Netanyahu said, according to a senior official in the premiers office. There are reasonable demands and unreasonable demands. The fate of the settlements will be decided in a final status agreement, he was quoted as telling parliaments foreign affairs and defence committee. He stressed that while the government would not halt expansion within existing settlements, it will not build new settlements and will dismantle outposts which Israel considers unlawful. Netanyahu also said his government was willing to resume peace talks with the Palestinians immediately not only on economic and security issues but on diplomatic questions. He said Israel was ready to hold the talks without preconditions. Israel should be recognised as the state of the Jewish people at the end of the process, he said. He also expressed support for US calls to boost peace hopes by normalising relations between Arab states and Israel, saying: The Arab states can take steps towards normalisation with Israel by forging trade ties and diplomatic ties and holding meetings with Israelis. UN investigators arrived in the Gaza Strip on Monday to probe alleged violations of international law during Israels massive offensive against the Palestinian enclave. The 15-strong team entered the small coastal strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and were met by UN officials in Gaza and a representative of the Hamas movement which rules the territory. They should remain in Gaza for a week. Meanwhile, Jewish settler mobs rampaged in the West Bank on Monday, hurling stones, burning fields and wounding at least four Palestinians, furious that Israel may raze outposts in the territory under US pressure. Jewish extremists blocked roads, hurled rocks at drivers, set fields ablaze, cut down olive trees and opened fire at Palestinians who tried to chase the trespassers from their fields in the northern West Bank, witnesses said. West of the city of Nablus, an area with some of the most hardline settlers in the occupied territory, dozens of masked men blocked a road in the early hours and hurled rocks at Palestinian drivers who stopped their vehicles to move the obstructions, they said. One of the four people wounded was in serious condition in hospital with a fractured skull, medics said. Police arrested six Jewish activists, among them an MP, Michael Ben Ari, who represents the pro-settler National Union party. A police spokesman said Ben Ari was among protesters who entered a restricted area and denied charges that the deputy had been mistreated. Near the settlement of Yizhar, heavy smoke billowed into the air as settlers set fire to Palestinian fields. When a group of Palestinians threw stones trying to chase young men off the land, settlers hiding nearby opened fire in the direction of the Palestinians and journalists, an AFP correspondent said. Three army patrol vehicles at a nearby junction stood by and did not intervene to stop the violence, but they prevented a Palestinian firetruck from reaching the field.