AFP - Palestinian police found a Hamas-run bomb factory in the West Bank town of Hebron on Friday and arrested 11 people, a security official from the rival Fatah faction said.

AFP - Two people were wounded on Friday in a bomb attack targeting an Islamist militant in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, a Palestinian official said.

AFP - Police clashed with Jewish protesters in Acre on Friday as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni travelled to the northern Israeli city to appeal for calm after two days of clashes between Arab and Jews.

AFP - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is examining a proposal made by the Islamist movement Hamas for Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks to take place later this month, a top aide said on Friday.

AFP - Eight people were slightly wounded when Israeli security forces fired rubber-coated bullets and teargas at demonstrators protesting the West Bank separation barrier on Friday, medics and witnesses said.

AFP - Syrian security forces killed two suspected Iraqi "terrorists" and a policeman also died in clashes in a Palestinian refugee camp, private Dunia television said on Thursday.

Reuters - Palestinian Islamists in Gaza are stalling on an Egyptian plan to reconcile them with the secular PLO leadership in the West Bank, a senior official of the rival Fatah faction said on Thursday.

AFP - Israel came to a standstill on Thursday as the country marked Yom Kippur -- the Day of Atonement -- the most sacred observance in the Jewish calendar.

Reuters - Hamas officials met Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Wednesday to hear proposals for resolving the Palestinian Islamists' stand-off with President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah group, a Hamas official said.

AP - Gaza's smugglers are going legit: Owners of the scores of tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border have registered with the Hamas authorities, pledged to pay workers' compensation and hooked up their operations to the electricity network.

AP - Israel's most famous missing soldier escaped from captivity in Lebanon and probably died 20 years ago while trying to make his way home through difficult terrain, Hezbollah told Israel's government, according to a newspaper report Wednesday.

AFP - A battle over hoummus and tabbouleh is shaping up between Lebanon and Israel -- two neighbours still technically at war -- with efforts underway to clearly identify such dishes as exclusively Lebanese.

AP - The latest conflict simmering between Lebanon and Israel is all about food: Lebanese businessmen accusing Israel of stealing traditional Middle Eastern dishes like hummus.

AFP - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev assured outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday that Moscow wants to play a "constructive role" in the Middle East, news agencies reported.

AFP - The Islamist Hamas movement sent a delegation to Egypt on Tuesday for talks aimed at restoring Palestinian unity amid a dispute over the presidency that could sharpen internal divisions.

AFP - Talks between Egypt and the Islamist Hamas movement on Wednesday must work towards a "non-factional" unity government for the Palestinian territories, Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad said.

Reuters - Hamas leaders will hold talks in Cairo on Wednesday on proposals to end the schism with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group by reshaping the way the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is governed.