Middle Orient

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday in a last-minute bid to clinch an agreement a day before his Kadima party holds an election to replace him.

GAZA (Reuters) – Thousands of Hamas members voted in a secret internal ballot in the Gaza Strip that re-elected the Islamist group’s most prominent leaders to its highest bodies and signaled no change in policy.

GAZA (Reuters) – Eleven Palestinians including a pro-al Qaeda militant and a child were killed on Tuesday in overnight gun battles in the Gaza Strip, Hamas police officials said.

The new US military commander in Iraq, Lt Gen Ray Odierno, has said that recent security gains there are “fragile and reversible”.

Representatives of Lebanon’s many political factions are meeting to begin dialogue on the country’s future.

Officials in the Gaza Strip say at least 11 people have been killed in a gun battle between Hamas security forces and a powerful local clan.

Outgoing General David Petraeus has handed over control of US military operations in Iraq at a ceremony in Baghdad. Petraeus is widely credited for security gains in Iraq after implementing a surge strategy backed by 30,000 extra US troops.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Ehud Olmert appealed on Monday for a partial peace deal with the Palestinians before he steps down as Israeli prime minister, but President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the idea on the eve of talks between the leaders.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Israel’s deadly shelling in the Gaza Strip in November 2006 may constitute a war crime, South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in a report to the United Nations released on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A dramatic fall in violence has breathed life into Baghdad’s once moribund property market, although the hunt for homes in Sunni and Shi’ite enclaves bodes ill for sectarian reconciliation in the Iraqi capital.