An American man who was in Israel for a Jewish work and study programme shot a chef dead at a Red Sea hotel and then killed himself in a shoot-out with Israeli commandos, police said.

A young American opened fire at a hotel in the Red Sea resort city of Eilat today, killing one person before police shot him dead.

At least one rocket has hit the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat near the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, police said.

EGYPT’S military has begun an operation to close a network of smuggling tunnels under the Gaza border following tension with Israel.

Egypt’s military has began an operation to close a network of smuggling tunnels under the Gaza border following tension with Israel.

Gaza militants launched barrages of rockets deep into Israel early today and Israeli aircraft struck targets in the Palestinian territory in the aftermath of the deadliest attack against Israelis in three years.

Israel has launched air strikes on Gaza after gunmen killed seven Israelis in a series of attacks near the border with Egypt.

Seven Israelis died when squads of gunmen armed with heavy weapons and explosives crossed into southern Israel from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula today and launched a series of attacks.

An Israeli paratrooper convicted of killing a British tourist and wounding his girlfriend has been approved for parole after serving two-thirds of his 20-year sentence.

A series of explosions were heard in the southern Israeli city of Eilat.

An Israeli bus driver has today been charged with manslaughter after 24 Russian tourists were killed when his bus plummeted into a desert gorge late last year.

A bus filled with Russian tour guides crashed through a roadside barrier and tumbled down a steep ravine in Israel today killing at least 23 people.

At least 20 tourists were killed when their coach overturned near the Israeli resort of Eilat today.

At least one person was killed today and six others injured, one critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the southern Israeli town which houses the country’s nuclear reactor, authorities said.

AS A tenuous ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip yesterday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh appealed to all Palestinians to prevent a resurgence in the internal violence that has left 36 people dead in recent days.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided today not to escalate Israeli attacks on Gaza following a Palestinian suicide bombing in Eilat on Monday that killed three people.

A ceasefire started taking hold in the Gaza Strip today, after five days of intense Hamas-Fatah fighting that left 34 people dead.

A PALESTINIAN suicide bomber attacked a bakery in a southern Israeli resort town yesterday, killing three people and himself.

Warring Hamas and Fatah factions in Gaza have tonight declared a ceasefire.

The young Palestinian suicide bomber who blew up a bakery in an Israeli resort today, killing himself and three other people, was unemployed, despondent over the death of a newborn daughter and driven to avenge his best friend’s killing by Israeli troops, relatives said.

Israeli Minister for Defence Amir Peretz denounced the Palestinian suicide bombing as an “escalation” that threatened a recent cease-fire, and promised to take all “necessary” steps to prevent similar attacks.

Three people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a bakery in the southern Israel resort town of Eilat today.

An Egyptian passenger ferry carrying around 1,300 people, mostly Egyptian workers returning from Saudi Arabia, sank in the Red Sea overnight.

Coast Guard vessels have pulled dozens of bodies from the water today after an Egyptian passenger ferry carrying around 1,300 people (or up to 1,415 according to some reports), mostly Egyptian workers returning from Saudi Arabia, sank in the Red Sea overnight.

Egyptian maritime director Mahfouz Taha Marzouk has said 12 survivors and 15 bodies have been picked up from a passenger ferry that has sunk in the Red Sea.

EGYPT yesterday freed an Israeli Arab businessman convicted of spying in exchange for Israel’s release of six Egyptian students, a deal that signalled a warming of relations between the two countries.

A Palestinian angered by Israeli-Palestinian violence plotted and then died in the nearly simultaneous car bombings of a Sinai hotel and campsite that killed at least 34 people this month, the Egyptian government said today.

Al-Qaida terrorists were blamed today for the car bomb attacks in resorts on Egypt’s Sinai coast that are feared to have killed more than 50 people, most of them Israelis.

The death toll from the Sinai resort blasts continued to rise today after an attack on a luxury hotel blamed on al-Qaida.

Jordanian border authorities shot dead three armed men who were trying to sneak through the frontier into Israel today and detained a fourth man.

A purported message from senior al-Qaida mastermind Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi today said the terror network did not plan a chemical weapons attack as Jordan has claimed.

A Jordanian truck driver opened fire on a crowd of tourists crossing into Israel today, wounding five, in an attack near the Red Sea resort of Eilat that until now has been untouched by three years of Mideast violence.

Two gunmen tried to infiltrate a border crossing point from Jordan into southern Israel, wounding at least four people on the Israeli side of the border, Israel radio reported.

ISRAEL yesterday said US president George W Bush was likely to hold a summit with the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers in Jordan next week to promote a US-backed “road map” for Middle East peace.

A hotel in the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat has been closed after at least two guests were diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease.

The US will give Israel sufficient warning before any attack on Iraq to allow time to prepare for expected counter attacks against it by Baghdad, says Ariel Sharon.

The US will give Israel sufficient warning before any attack on Iraq to allow time to prepare for expected counterattacks against it by Baghdad, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said today.

Israel today displayed 50 tons of missiles, mortars, and mines seized on a ship and accused the Palestinians of plotting ‘‘the next wave of terror’’.