Benjamin Netanyahu, the favourite to become Israel's next prime minister, is losing ground before the country's national elections, according to leading opinion polls.

   Torrential rain and snow have killed 40 this year; Severe rain in Morocco kills 24, forces evacuation  -

Heavy rains in Morocco have claimed 24 lives and forced 2,000 people to be evacuated over the past week, interior ministry officials said Saturday.

 

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip has landed in southern Israel, setting several cars on fire, the Israeli military has said.

 

Vote counting is under way after millions of Iraqis cast ballots in regional elections in the second major poll since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

 

Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, has vowed his country will deliver a "severe and disproportionate response" after Palestinian fighters fired rockets into southern Israel.

 

The US Middle East envoy has arrived in the Saudi capital on the final leg of a regional tour aimed at reviving peace efforts, the Saudi official SPA news agency has reported.

 

Hamas and other Palestinian factions are in Cairo for talks with Egyptian and European mediators in an effort to cement the ceasefires that ended Israel's three-week war on the Gaza Strip.

 

Hamas is set to hand out money to Gazans afflicted by Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip.The territory's government was due to start giving out the money, expected to total about $45m, on Sunday - a day after a Hamas committee was established to oversee relief efforts.

 

Israel will give legal protection to soldiers who fought in the three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, has said.

 

The Israeli military has continued its operation in the Gaza Strip, killing one civilian in Khan Younis and carrying out air raids in the north, just hours after the country's prime minister declared an end to hostilities.

 

Two Palestinian boys have been killed after Israeli tank shells hit a UN-run school in Gaza - hours before Israel's security cabinet is expected to vote on a proposal for a unilateral ceasefire.

 

Qatar and Mauritania have suspended economic and political ties with Israel in protest against the war in Gaza, Al Jazeera has learned.

 

The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 854 and more than 3,650 injured as the Israeli offensive entered its third week.

 

Hamas has said that the Gaza war has put an end to chances of negotiations with Israel, calling on Arabs to pressure Tel Aviv to cease its attacks on the Gaza Strip.

 

Human Rights Watch has called on Israel to stop using white phosphorus which it says has been used in military operations in the densely populated Gaza Strip.

 

Heavy fighting is raging in the Gaza Strip between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters after Israel launched its ground offensive on the territory.

 

As international protests against the offensive in the Gaza Strip continue, Israel also faced a fresh round of condemnations from world leaders.

 

At least 35 civilians have been killed and 65 wounded in a suicide attack at a shrine in northwestern Baghdad, Iraqi government officials said.

 

Eight rockets and mortars fired from Gaza have hit towns in southern Israel, with one house being severely damaged in Sderot, Israeli rescue service workers have said.

 

At least seven Palestinian detainees and three Israeli guards have been injured in a prison riot, according to Yaron Zamir, a prison service spokesman.

 

George Bush, the US president, has insisted that a "good deal" of progress has been made in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, despite the failure of both sides to reach a settlement before he leaves office in January.

 

Thousands of people have gathered in Gaza's main square to celebrate the 21st anniversary of Hamas, the Palestinian faction.

 

The US-led coalition's $100bn effort to rebuild Iraq has failed amid bureaucratic quarrels, ignorance of Iraqi society and violence in the country, the New York Times has quoted a US federal report as saying.

 

At least 45 people have been killed and 12 others injured in a bus accident south of Cairo, Egypt's capital, a security official says.

 

An Iranian electronics salesman accused of passing information about the country's atomic energy programme to the Israelis has been hanged, a spokesman for the judiciary has said.

 

The world's largest collection of Islamic art has gone on display in the Gulf state of Qatar.The $300 million Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the capital of Qatar, was unveiled on Saturday before Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, and 1,000 dignitaries from around the world.

 

Iraq's cabinet has approved a security pact which allows about 150,000 US troops to remain in the country for another three years, a government spokesman has confirmed.

 

Israel's prime minister says the five-month truce with Hamas in the Gaza Strip has been "shattered" following 13 days of tit-for-tat attacks.

 

Bedouin fighters have shot and wounded an Egyptian policeman in Sinai.The shooting follows an incident in which tribesmen seized dozens of guns and thousands of bullets during two days of protests.

 

Senior envoys from the Quartet of Middle East negotiators have called on Israel and the Palestinians to move forwards with peace talks despite the process being largely stagnant for the past year.

 

Reconciliation talks between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have been postponed at the 11th hour.

 

Iraq's president and two vice-presidents have approved a resolution that guarantees local council seats for Christians and other minorities.

 

The Israeli government has announced it will cut off all funding for "illegal" Jewish settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank.

 

The Gulf tour by the British prime minister has led to Saudi Arabia and Qatar saying that they are willing to increase their co-operation to contain any further spread of the global credit crisis.

 

At least six people have been killed and at least 20 others wounded in two bomb blasts in the centre of Iraq's capital, Baghdad.

 

The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement has denied allegations linking the organisation to a Colombian drug trafficking network.

 

About 300 Iraqis have staged a protest against a planned security deal which would allow US soldiers to stay in the country for at least three more years.

 

Finance ministers and central bankers from the oil-rich Gulf said on Saturday they expect their economies to continue to grow despite the global financial crisis and a sharp drop in oil prices.

 

Iraq's ruling Shia parties have demanded changes to a deal that would allow US troops to stay in the country until 2011.

 

Jewish settlers have been caught on camera punching and kicking two news photographers and a British woman who was helping Palestinians pick olives near a West Bank town.

 

Hesham Talaat Moustafa, an Egyptian construction developer, and a former police officer, is on trial for the murder of Suzanne Tamim, a Lebanese singer.

 

Jewish and Arab rioters have clashed for a fourth straight night in the northern Israeli city of Akko.Police fired water cannons to disperse crowds and arrested 32 people from both sides on Saturday, and three Arab homes were torched and damaged, Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman said.

 

A bomb planted in a parked car has killed nine people and wounded 13 others after it exploded in a busy commercial street of Baghdad, police say.

 

Attacks in the Iraqi city of Mosul have forced nearly 1,000 Christians, including 500 families, from their homes in just the past week, the governor of the northern Ninawa province says.

 

Gulf states' stock markets have dropped sharply due to uncertainty surrounding the current global financial crisis.

 

Ahmed Abul Gheit, Egypt's foreign minister, has arrived in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad for a one-day surprise visit.

 

Hundreds of tunnels under the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt are keeping many of the Palestinian territory's 1.5 million impoverished residents supplied with food and fuel.

 

At least 26 people have been killed and dozens wounded after two car bombs exploded in the west of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

 

A newspaper editor has been jailed for two months after publishing articles suggesting Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, was seriously ill.

 

Bombs and shootings in Iraq have killed at least 14 people, including a four-member Iraqi private television crew.

 

A Saudi scholar has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of television networks broadcasting "depravation and debauchery".

 

The Iraqi parliament lifted the immunity of Sunni MP Mithal Alusi on Sunday for visiting Israel last week to attend an international conference on terrorism.

 

Israeli police have recommended corruption charges against the country's prime minister.Police said on Sunday that they possess enough evidence to charge Ehud Olmert for accepting bribes and breaching public trust.

 

Rescuers are still looking for hundreds of people feared trapped in the rubble of homes crushed in a massive rockslide at a shantytown on the outskirts of Cairo.

 

The Sudanese government on Sunday denied claims by rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) that the army has launched a massive attack in north Darfur, resulting in heavy casualties.

 

Israeli security forces have raided the offices of the Islamic Movement and al-Aqsa institution in the northern Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm, accusing them of supporting the Palestinian Hamas movement.

 

A suicide bomber has killed at least five people and wounded nine more in Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, police have said.

  Suicide blasts target Iraq pilgrims

A double suicide attack has killed at least 19 people and wounded 75 in a town near Iskandariya, 50km south of Baghdad, Iraq's capital.