New York - The United Nations on Monday thanked the emir of Qatar for allocating 30 million dollars as humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip and 10 million dollars for a UN emergency fund.

Qatar said the 30 million dollars will go towards meeting the "critical needs" of Gaza residents affected by the recent Israel- Hamas conflict.

The UN also expressed its gratitude for Qatar's 10-million-dollar contribution to the Central Emergency Response Fund, which was set up to meet urgent relief needs around the world.

Jerusalem - Outgoing Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert suspended a top defence ministry official from negotiating with Egyptian mediators on a truce with militants in the Gaza Strip and the return of an Israeli soldier held captive in the salient for two-and-a-half years.

Israel Radio quoted unnamed "high-ranking figures in the Prime Minister's Office" as saying Monday that the talks with Egypt would now be conducted by Olmert's office, and Amos Gilad would no longer be the envoy.

Amsterdam  - Dutch police on Monday confirmed they had detained two men and a woman suspected of having thrown shoes at Israeli army spokesman Ron Edelheit.

Edelheit was hit on his legs by the shoes at a lecture in Amsterdam late Sunday evening entitled "After the Gaza war, what next?" which was picketed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

It was unclear if Edelheit had pressed charges after the incident or not.

Amsterdam police spokesman Charmene van Damme on Monday confirmed the Dutch police had detained two man and a woman, all three in their early twenties.

"They were taken to the police station and interrogated but sent home afterwards," she said.

Gaza  - Palestinian paramedics extracted a body from a tunnel beneath Egypt's border with Gaza Strip Sunday, medical officials said, bringing to four the number of dead in the tunnel, with a fifth person missing.

It was unclear whether the four died as a result of poison gas canisters Egyptian security forces tossed into the tunnel on Saturday, or wether they were killed in an Israeli bomb raid.

Egypt has beefed up security measures along its border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip since the end of Israel's 22-day offensive against militants in the salient, and Israel regularly launches air raids on the scores of tunnels which run under the Gaza strip border with the Sinai peninsula.

Rafah, Egypt  - Egypt partially opened its border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, Palestinian and Egyptian officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The crossing at the town of Rafah, which is bisected by the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, will be open for three days to allow medical patients, their family members, doctors and journalists stranded on both sides of the border to cross.

An Egyptian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, told dpa that a total of some 3,300 Palestinians, including approximately 800 students at universities in Egypt and other Arab countries, would cross the border over the next three days.

Prague/Ramallah - The European Union condemns Israeli plans for settlement expansion in the West Bank, the Czech EU presidency said in a statement delivered on behalf of the 27-member bloc.

The EU called on Israel in the statement issued late Friday to reconsider plans for construction in the vicinity of the Adam settlement in the West Bank, as it would violate international law and Israel's commitments made to the Palestinians in the Annapolis peace talks.

The union said that expansion of the settlements "is a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East."