Gaza - Unknown militants stormed a Gaza Strip beach resort early Wednesday and burned it down, after handcuffing three security guards, witnesses and security sources said.

The militants left the Ebad al-Rahman resort after confiscating three computers, the sources added.

The resort, which opened this summer, is located in the north-west of the salient, not far from the main headquarter of Hamas' internal security force.

Attacks against places of entertainment have increased in the Strip since June last year when militants from Hamas routed forces loyal to secular President Mahmoud Abbas and seized security control of the salient.

Tel Aviv - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has urged Israel not to release jailed Hamas legislators as part of a deal to free an Israeli soldier held in Gaza Strip, the Ha'aretz daily reported Wednesday.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Abbas even threatened to dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA) if Israel did release them. It said the threat was delivered to the head of the Israeli army's central command by senior Abbas aide Hussein al-Sheikh. The daily gave no source.

Gaza City - The de-facto Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip has banned three major West Bank-based Palestinian dailies in the salient, a statement by the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said Monday.

The Palestinian Journalists Union in the West Bank said Hamas police in Gaza prevented the three newspapers, al-Quds, al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida, from being distributed after they arrived in the enclave.

The Interior Ministry said it blocked their distribution in the Gaza Strip because of what it described as their unfair coverage of a bombing attack on a Hamas car on Friday.

Gaza City - Palestinians and international activists plan to challenge Israeli's blockade of the Gaza Strip by navigating a small sailing ship into the Israeli-controlled waters off the Gaza Strip, organizers said Monday.

The vessel is to set sail for Gaza from Cyprus on August 5, according to a statement by the US-based Free Gaza Movement, which is organizing the action along with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and the US-based Free Gaza Movement.

The activists expect to confront Israeli naval patrol boats when they reach Gaza waters.

Jerusalem - An Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that would also settle the disputed status of Jerusalem was unlikely to be signed by the year's end, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday, but added that gaps on other key issues were bridgeable.

"I do not believe we can reach understandings this year which will include the subject of Jerusalem," he told a parliamentary committee dealing with foreign affairs and security.

"As regards the other core issues - the gaps are not dramatic," the Ynet news site quoted him as saying.

Tel Aviv - An Israeli soldier who fired a rubber-coated bullet at a handcuffed Palestinian was arrested and the officer holding the man was detained for questioning, Israeli media reported on Monday.

On Sunday video footage of the incident was released by the Israeli rights organization B'tselem. It was filmed July 7 by a 14-year-old Palestinian school girl during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Nil'in against the building of Israel's separation barrier.

In the clip, the Palestinian, Ashraf Abu Rahma, 27, is seen standing, blindfolded and handcuffed, next to a military jeep. A soldier takes aim, checks it twice, and then apparently fires at or near his foot from a very close distance.