GAZA CITY — Palestinian children started their school year Saturday hoping that Israel’s withdrawal from the war-weary Gaza Strip meant they were free of the military raids that made their student days a nightmare. One million pupils returned to schools across the West Bank and Gaza, as Israel was putting …

BEIRUT (AP) — Under intense pressure to cooperate with a UN probe into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, Syria on Saturday invited the world body’s chief investigator to Damascus to meet Syrian authorities within days. But in a move sure to turn the heat further up …

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — With January 25, 2006 set as the new date for Palestinian parliamentary elections, most talk has been about what the ruling Fateh faction can do to stop the apparently inexorable rise in popularity of the opposition Hamas Islamists. Indeed, the delay in holding the elections originally slated …