As tension escalates in West Asia, the US has dispatched three warships to the region to be on standby in the event of a need, even as President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spo

An Israeli air strike killed three Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday, medics said, with Palestinian security sources confirming they were Hamas militants.

Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil crossed into Gaza Friday for a brief visit amid a massive Israeli military campaign against militants in the Hamas-run territory.

Shortly ahead of his arrival at

Israel launched fresh air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight after killing two people in earlier raids, the Palestinian health ministry said on Saturday.

The latest strikes targeted two camps of the

Palestinian medical officials said on Friday that a total of 12 people had been killed and about 19 injured in a series of Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

They named the latest fatality, kille

Gaza militants agreed to a cease-fire with Israel to stop three days of violence, a Hamas official said on Sunday, after a deadly attack on Israelis near the Egypt-Israel border set off a round of Israeli airstrikes and rocket barrages from Gaza.

A Grad rocket fired from Gaza slammed into the centre of the southern Israeli city of Beersheva early today, lightly injuring one person, an Israeli Army spokeswoman told AFP.

Israeli artillery fire killed a Palestinian and wounded two on Saturday in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian emergency services said in statements denied by the army.

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel on Tuesday, causing no injuries, the Israeli military said.

Chile's recognition of an independent Palestinian state is "useless" and will not help advance peace, a senior Israeli official told AFP on Saturday.