Mideast Conflict

CAIRO - Egyptian security officials say a project is under way along the Gaza border to stem smuggling into the Palestinian territory through underground tunnels. Full Story »

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syria warned Israel on Thursday it risked closing the door to renewed peace talks, a day after the Israeli parliament agreed to consider a bill that would make it far more difficult to return the occupied Golan. Full Story »

JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister has proposed offering additional funds and new social benefits to tens of thousands of Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Full Story »

BRUSSELS - The European Union warned Israel on Thursday not to play "divide and rule" with the 27-nation bloc over the EU's new position that Jerusalem should be the shared capital of Israel and a future Palestinian state. Full Story »

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli authorities said on Thursday they will send up to 40,000 doses of swine flu vaccine to the Gaza Strip, where six people have died of the virus in the past five days. Full Story »

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A healthy man in blockaded Gaza faked cancer, hoping the deadly disease would be his ticket out of the territory that has become an open-air prison for its 1.4 million residents. Full Story »

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's premier wants to list some West Bank settlements as national priority zones and grant them 28 million dollars in credits, his office said on Thursday. Full Story »

WASHINGTON - A Palestinian shopkeeper and father portrayed as a terrorist in the movie "Bruno" is suing film star Sacha Baron Cohen, David Letterman and others for libel and slander. Full Story »

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Thousands of Jewish West Bank settlers and their supporters demonstrated near the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday to protest his 10-month building freeze. Full Story »

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Thousands of demonstrators rallied outside the Israeli prime minister's residence in Jerusalem on Wednesday to protest a 10-month moratorium on new building permits for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. Full Story »

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's top court on Wednesday upheld a decision under which a Palestinian student was deported from Bethlehem to Gaza just two months before she was due to complete her bachelor's degree. Full Story »

GAZA (Reuters) - Egyptian earth-moving machinery was at work on the Gaza Strip border on Wednesday and an Israeli newspaper said a project was under way to build a subterranean metal wall to block Palestinian smuggling tunnels. Full Story »

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Wednesday a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas was still stuck on the question of which prisoners Hamas wants in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier. Full Story »

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The European parliament demanded on Wednesday that Israel explain why it prevented a delegation of MEPs from travelling to the Gaza Strip despite initially authorising the visit. Full Story »

RAFAH, Egypt (AFP) - Egyptian engineers were carrying out major excavation work at the Gaza border on Wednesday as an Israeli daily reported that an anti-smuggling barrier was under construction, an AFP reporter said. Full Story »

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Israeli parliament on Wednesday passed the first reading of a bill requiring a referendum to approve a pull-out from annexed east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as part of any peace deal. Full Story »

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A US-born Jewish settler suspected of having murdered two Palestinians and carrying out a string of hate attacks against missionaries and gays went on trial Wednesday. Full Story »

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday there was no deal for now between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas on freeing an Israeli soldier held in Gaza. Full Story »