The European Union’s foreign policy chief has expressed his support for the people of the Gaza Strip on his first visit to the territory since the Palestinian militant group Hamas seized control in June 2007.
Javier Solana toured Gaza ahead of a donor conference next week aimed at raising funds to rebuild Gaza after Israel’s devastating three-week military campaign against Hamas, which ended last month.

CAIRO: A senior Palestinian official says Saudi Arabia has offered proposals to back Egyptian-led Palestinian reconciliation efforts crucial to forming a lasting cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.
The Palestinian representative to Egypt, Nabil Amr, says he’s not authorized to disclose the details about the proposals. But he says Arab ministers meeting Tuesday in the United Arab Emirates will discuss the Saudi proposals.
Egypt is leading these efforts between rival Palestinian factions — Hamas and Fatah. These efforts are key to the cease-fire and the revival of peace talks with Israel.

A senior European Union official touring war-torn Gaza has blamed the ruling militant movement Hamas for the humanitarian crisis there.
Humanitarian aid chief Louis Michel called the destruction left by Israel’s offensive “abominable”, but said Hamas bore “overwhelming responsibility”.
He said there would be no dialogue with the “terrorist” movement until it gave up violence and recognised Israel.
He also announced emergency aid for Gaza worth more than US $70m (£50m).

Israeli airstrikes have targeted the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, as part of Israel’s response to an attack on one of its frontier patrols on Tuesday.
Residents near the town of Rafah fled as missiles hit tunnels through which Israel says militants smuggle arms.
The strikes came ahead of US envoy George Mitchell’s visit to promote a permanent Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Both sides declared ceasefires on 17 and 18 January to end Israel’s three-week offensive on Gaza.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Israel’s invasion of Gaza has strengthened the hand of extremists and only a credible independent investigation into alleged wrongdoing can quieten growing Palestinian anger, a U.N. aid official said on Friday.
John Ging, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, called for new U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell to talk to ordinary people in Gaza as part of a “new track” in diplomacy.
U.S. President Barack Obama named Mitchell, a former U.S. Senator who helped settle the conflict in Northern Ireland, on Thursday to …

Palestinian medical sources said Wednesday that the death toll in the Gaza conflict has risen to 1,010 Palestinians. Another 4,700 have been wounded in the conflict, which began on December 27, the medics said.
Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have died in the operation in Gaza and from rocket strikes on southern Israel, according to the Israeli military. More than 100 soldiers have been wounded, most of them not seriously.
As Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded Gaza for a 19th day, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon once again called for an immediate halt …

The Israeli government will weigh the future of its military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as mounting casualties among Palestinian civilians increased pressure for a truce.
At least 40 Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces struck a school run by the United Nations in Gaza, a UN official said. Israel, which struck at least 40 more Hamas targets overnight, said it responded after its soldiers were fired at from the building.
The school deaths yesterday added urgency to diplomatic efforts aimed at reaching a cease-fire as the conflict entered its …

RAMALLAH, West Bank — On the wall of the Israeli government press office in Jerusalem on Monday was a stack of yellow Post-it notes pasted one on top of the next, with the number 10,048 scrawled on the top one. That was the number of Palestinian rockets and mortar shells fired into Israel from Gaza since 2001.
It was quickly out of date, and other Post-its will soon be stacked on top.
For Israel, the tally has prompted internal debate about how to counter the threat from Hamas’s homemade rockets and …

The reported movement of troops toward Pakistan’s border with India on Friday raised the threat of war between the two nuclear-armed rivals and will distract Pakistan from fighting Taliban-led militants, security analysts said.
The specter of war also may be exaggerated to reduce international pressure on Pakistan to crack down on a militant group blamed for the deadly Mumbai attacks last month, analysts said.
Regardless, even the reports of troop movements made the crisis much more serious than before and could undo most of the progress the two countries had made in …

The 12 remaining peacekeepers in the troubled Philippines province of Mindanao are to leave the area, despite government appeals for them to stay.
The Malaysian peacekeepers are to leave on Sunday after the Philippines government pulled out of the latest peace talks with the indigenous Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Milf).
The two sides have failed to agree on the mandate of the peacekeepers.