Yahoo! News: Mideast Conflict

Reuters - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told visiting U.S. congressmen he thinks it could be possible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians in a year despite huge differences, his spokesman said.

AFP - Eighty-four people have been charged in connection with a deadly clash last month between Hezbollah and a pro-Syrian Sunni faction, Lebanon's official National News Agency reported.

AFP - President Bashar al-Assad and Jordan's King Abdullah II met in Syria on Monday for talks on the resumption of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, SANA news agency reported.

AP - Israel's hard-line foreign minister said Monday that his party will try to block any extension of Israel's settlement slowdown, a move that could derail the recently launched Mideast peace negotiations.

AP - A dovish U.S. Jewish group says more than 150 film and theater artists have signed a letter of support for Israeli actors who refused to perform in a West Bank settlement.

AFP - Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday his ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party would block any attempt to extend a partial moratorium on settlements due to expire on September 26.

AFP - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that creative thinking was needed to end the decades-old conflict with the Palestinians.

AFP - An Israeli rights group on Sunday accused Jerusalem police of failing to protect Palestinians in annexed east Jerusalem from hardline settlers residing in neighbourhoods heavily populated with Arabs.

AP - Israeli and Palestinian leaders plan talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Jerusalem this month. The setting is a symbolic move to show the seriousness of peace negotiations.

AFP - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend a second round of peace talks between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders later this month in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, a State Department official said Sunday.

AFP - The Israeli cabinet on Sunday confirmed as armed forces chief Major General Yoav Galant, who directed Israel's 2008-2009 Gaza war, the prime minister's office said.

AFP - The body of a second Palestinian killed in Israeli air strikes on southern Gaza was recovered on Sunday, according to Palestinian medics and witnesses.

AFP - The Palestinian Authority lashed out Saturday at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his remarks about the relaunching of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

AFP - UN rights officials investigating Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla wrapped up their hearings in Jordan on Saturday after interviewing a total of 30 witnesses, one of the flotilla organisers said.

AFP - Palestinian militants fired a rocket from Gaza into Israel on Saturday without causing any casualties or damage, an army spokesman said.

AP - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to inject urgency into Israeli-Palestinian peace talks Friday, warning the negotiations may be "the last chance for a very long time" to reach an agreement.