Washington - Two separate avalanches have claimed the lives of a skier and snowboarder in British Columbia, just days after eight snowmobilers met a similar fate on the perilous slopes of Canada's westernmost province, the Toronto Star reported Friday.

The 26-year-old snowboarder died Thursday while snowboarding solo on a part of Whistler Mountain that was closed to the public. Whistler is to host events during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

A 37-year-old skier was buried in sliding snow late Wednesday on nearby Blackcomb Mountain, the newspaper reported.

Tel Aviv  - International journalists demanded unfettered access to Gaza Friday and protested Israeli government attempts to limit the entry of reporters into the strip.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA), the body representing foreign correspondents working in Israel and the Palestinian autonomous areas, said it was "dismayed" the Israeli government allowed no journalists to enter Gaza on Friday, despite an Israeli High Court decision that it should allow limited access.

The Jerusalem court ruled Friday morning the government should allow into Gaza small groups of eight to 12 journalists at a time, who must share their information with other reporters - a practice called "pool sharing" in journalism.

Gaza/Tel Aviv - Hamas declared Friday a "day of rage" to mark one week of incessant Israeli air raids in Gaza, and vowed to avenge the killing of a top leader, Nizar Rayan, along with nearly his entire family in one airstrike in northern Gaza the previous afternoon.

Israel continued to focus on, and keep up, its air raids on the seventh day of its offensive, but ground troops were waiting along the Gaza border for orders to enter.

At least eight Palestinians - three of them children - were killed as a military spokesman said Israel pounded 20 more targets overnight and some 35 later throughout the day.

Brussels/Prague - The European Union is to send a beefed-up peace mission to the Middle East in a bid to end the ongoing conflict between Israel and Islamic group Hamas, EU officials said Friday.

As well as Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, EU top diplomat Javier Solana and Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt are set to join the mission.

The Czech Republic took over the EU's rotating presidency from France on Thursday and is set to hand it on to Sweden on July 1.

Washington - As US President George W Bush's eight years in office near the end, he plans to lunch with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday at the White House.

At the top of the agenda will be the future of the United Nations and remaining challenges such as UN reform, the Middle East, Burma, Somalia, and peacekeeping in Darfur, said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe in a statement.

First Lady Laura Bush will also join the affair.

Gaza/Tel Aviv - After a week of relentless Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip, Israeli ground troops along the Gaza border are readying for an order for an incursion.

Since Israel launched its offensive shortly after 11 am (0900 GMT) last Saturday, its air force has destroyed more than 700 targets, a military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv said Friday.

At least 100 smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt, as well as police stations, offices, houses, vehicles and rocket launching-, storing- and production sites belonging to the radical Islamic Hamas movement and its activists, were hit, many more than once.

After one week, the Israel Air Force's "pool of targets are close to exhaustion," one Israeli government official said.