London  - The destruction caused to the Gaza Strip in last month's Israeli campaign will cost 15 billion dollars to repair, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in London Thursday.

Abbas, who was speaking after talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said that despite the bitterness and fighting there was "no alternative to peace" in the Middle East.

Brown pledged Britain's support for the reconstruction of Gaza, and urged Israel to allow aid to get through to the victims of the conflict.

Ramallah - Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian near the northern West Bank city of Jenin early Thursday, Palestinian security and medical sources said.

They said the soldiers opened fire at Ala Abu al-Rub, 21, a local leader of the Saraya al-Quds, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, in the village of Qabatya, south of Jenin, and killed him instantly.

Abu al-Rub has been wanted by the Israeli army for years for his anti-occupation activities and has been in hiding. He was killed at his house when he came to see his family, the security sources said.

Beirut  - Five rockets were found late Wednesday near Naqoura close to the southern Lebanon border with Israel, a Lebanese army statement said, adding that they were not primed.

Cairo  - As Egypt's Thursday deadline for negotiating a truce in the Gaza Strip approaches, a Hamas representative said an agreement was unlikely by the end of Wednesday's negotiations.

"There is still a huge gap between Hamas and Israel concerning a truce. Thus, more time is needed," Mohammed Nizzal, a member of Hamas' political bureau in Damascus, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Wednesday.

Egypt is brokering a long-term, sustainable ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to continue the fragile calm in the enclave that went into effect on January 18 after the end of a 22-day offensive by Israel. Egypt has set February 5 as a deadline for Hamas to accept a truce.

Berlin  - Daniel Barenboim, the Argentinian-born conductor, called Tuesday for a new "Marshall plan" under German leadership to rebuild the smashed infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.

The call came in remarks prepared for delivery at a Berlin prize-giving.

He said Germany should learn to "cope with its feelings of guilt" about the Holocaust in a new way, and offer in reparation "to help the Jewish people to come to terms with the Palestinians."

Cairo  - An Egyptian opposition politician will face military trial on Thursday in the Suez Canal town of Ismailiya on charges of crossing into the Gaza Strip illegally, sources told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa on Tuesday.

Magdi Hussein, a fiery orator from Egypt's suspended Labour Party, was detained last Saturday when he came back to Egypt after spending a week in the Strip.