GAZA – Israeli leaders trying to find a knockout blow against Hamas militants defying a 17-day-old assault on the Gaza Strip have sent army reservists into battle. With the Palestinian death toll nearing 900 and international pressure for a ceasefire mounting, Israeli forces might launch a full-scale attack on Hamas …

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel and Hamas vowed to keep fighting on Sunday, ignoring international calls to stop the Gaza conflict which entered a 16th day with heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian guerrillas. Hamas’s leader in exile, Khaled Meshaal, said his Islamist group would not consider a truce until …

KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Ukraine, Russia and the EU struck a monitoring agreement Sunday that should enable the resumption of Russian supplies to Europe, large parts of which have been plunged into a mid-winter energy crisis. Officials said monitors would begin work within hours to oversee gas flows via Ukraine to …

(Reuters) – Israel and Hamas remained locked in a 16-day-old Gaza war on Sunday, ignoring international calls for a ceasefire. The Palestinian death toll topped 850, including many civilians. Three Israeli civilians, killed by rockets, and 10 soldiers have died. Here are some questions and answers about the conflict:

RIYADH (Reuters) – A leading Saudi campaigner for political rights has been released without charge after eight months in detention, a rights activist said on Sunday. Matruk al-Faleh, a politics professor, was set free on Saturday after he was taken from his offices at King Saud University in Riyadh last …

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers killed 10 Palestinian gunmen during clashes in the city of Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian medical officials said. The location of the fighting, on the southwest side of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip’s biggest population centre, suggested Israel was intensifying a more than two-week-old offensive. Troops previously …

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of Russian gas company Gazprom, Alexei Miller, faces a serious obstacle to his dream of turning his firm into a $1 trillion bluechip company: he owes his loyalty to the Kremlin. That tension was in evidence this week when Miller was at the center of …

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India has not exhausted its diplomatic options in its attempt to bring the Mumbai attack plotters to justice, India’s foreign minister said Saturday. “We have not reached the end of the road,” Pranab Mukherjee told CNN-IBN television channel. But he also said that India had enough …

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani authorities have extended for 60 days the detention of the founder of the Islamist militant group India has blamed for November’s attacks in Mumbai, a government spokesman said on Sunday. Hafiz Saeed was put under house arrest in the city of Lahore in early December …

(Reuters) – Following are developments in the fighting in the Gaza Strip as of 0500 GMT: (* Denotes new or updated items) *GAZA – Palestinian witnesses report heavy fighting east of the city of Gaza where Hamas militants fired anti-tank missiles and mortar bombs at advancing Israeli forces who responded …