Bethlehem - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Saturday reiterated calls for Israel to accept a two-state solution, vowing not to resume negotiations with Israel without an explicit Israeli recognition of previously signed agreements.

Addressing an audience at the opening of an event celebrating Jerusalem's role in Arab culture, Abbas said justice and peace will not come to the Middle East without "an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."

"Jerusalem is the key for peace," said Abbas.

Geneva  - The recent Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip lacked a legal basis and potentially amounted to a "crime against peace," according to a United Nations expert report available on the internet Friday.

Israel did not exhaust the diplomatic options available to it before engaging in the conflict, Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, wrote in the report.

Tel Aviv - Israeli human rights groups have urged their government to investigate allegations of war crimes committed during the Gaza offensive, after a number of Israeli soldier told a symposium of lax rules of engagement that allowed civilians to be killed.

The nine groups, which include B'Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, demanded the government's attorney-general establish an "independent" investigative body, not linked to the military, to examine the allegations.

Gaza City/Cairo  - Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum announced on Thursday that the Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo to flesh out the contours of a national unity government had concluded the first round of talks after nine days of intense negotiations.

Barhoum, in a statement released in the Egyptian capital, said that leaders of 13 Palestinian factions, including Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, would leave Cairo for consultations with other faction leaders.

Gaza City/Cairo - Hamas said Wednesday that Palestinian factions agreed in Cairo on forming a transitional unity government which would prepare for new elections by early next year, but the sides were still disputing the government's platform.

Fawzi Barhoum, a senior leader of the radical Islamist movement ruling the Gaza Strip, said in a written statement sent to journalists from Cairo that the parties agreed on the nature of the government, which will be a transitional one that is to prepare for new elections on a date no later than January 25, 2010.

Gaza