Ramallah - Israeli officials met with Hamas prisoners over the past few days to discuss a prisoner exchange deal that would secure the release of an Israeli soldier held captive in the Gaza Strip for over 1,000 days, a Palestinian news agency reported Monday.

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.

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

Gaza City/Cairo - Talks in Cairo aimed at producing a Palestinian "national unity" government are still stalled on the issue of recognising Israel, a Hamas lawmaker said Wednesday.

Egyptian mediators hope to reconcile Hamas, which won Gaza's parliamentary elections in 2006, with President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement in the West Bank to form a unified government, and to reform the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Amman - The Islamic Action Front (IAF), Jordan's largest political party, on Tuesday rebuked Egypt for denying entry to the Gaza Strip for a Jordanian delegation of parliamentarians and politicians.

"Preventing Jordanian parliamentarians from entering the Gaza Strip represents an offence to the Jordanian government, parliament and people," IAF Secretary General Zaki Bani Ershaid said in a statement.