Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt  - World leaders who gathered for a donors conference in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm al-Sheikh on Monday urged swift action to rebuild the battered Gaza Strip, and pledged billions of dollars in reconstruction aid.

By Monday afternoon, donors came close to exceeding the 2.8 billion dollars in aid that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had requested.

Persian Gulf states Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar pledged 1.6 billion dollars, and said they would set up an office to handle the donations so the aid would not pass through either the Palestinian National Authority or Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007.

Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt  - High-level delegations from some 75 countries were to gather in Egypt on Monday to pledge billions of dollars of aid to the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has asked for roughly 2.8 billion dollars in aid to pay for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip after Israel's 22-day offensive in late December and January.

More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in that offensive, and thousands of homes and government buildings were demolished.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday was scheduled to make her first appearance as secretary of state at a conference of this scale.

Jerusalem/Gaza  - Continued Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on southern Israel will be met with "a painful, sharp, strong and uncompromising response," outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday.

Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, he warned that "the state of Israel has a wide range of options that will be utilized in order to bring complete quiet to the south" and said the Israel action will "in no way be what the terrorist organizations expect."

Gaza  - Palestinian militants on Saturday fired two rockets from Gaza Strip at the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, Israeli media and witnesses said.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, and no damage or casualties were reported.

Early in the morning, a Palestinian man was wounded when Israeli aircraft bombed the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt, targeting the underground tunnels used for smuggling.

Though Israel ended a major offensive into Gaza last month, it continues too strike at the tunnels area.

Washington  - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will arrive in Israel and the West Bank next week on her first trip to the region aimed at feeling out ways to revive the peace process.

Clinton's trip is not meant to push forward on any new initiatives, but to "take the pulse of the various leaders" about how to advance the peace process and build a lasting ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militants ruling the Gaza Strip, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

Beirut/Damascus - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Wednesday that he hoped Lebanon's upcoming parliamentary elections will be held in "a tension-free" environment.

He was speaking in Beirut as part of a week-long trip to the Middle East, and shortly before a UN Special Tribunal in the Hague is due to try alleged suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

He later flew on to Cairo, where he was due Thursday to have talks with Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak and other leading officials.