Cairo  - Palestinian and Egyptian sources on Sunday indicated that Hamas may present a unified, final negotiating position on a long-term truce in Gaza as soon as Monday, local media reported.

But even as Hamas reportedly moved closer to accepting a truce, Palestinian militants fired a rocket at southern Israel, damaging cars but causing no casualties, Israeli military officials said.

A delegation of Hamas leaders from Gaza led my Mahmoud al-Zahar was due in Damascus Sunday for consultations with leaders in exile there.

Tel Aviv  - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a missile at southern Israel Sunday morning, causing no injuries but damaging several vehicles, including one which went up in flames, an Israeli military spokesman said.

The rocket came as Egypt continued to try and broker a long-term ceasefire deal between Israel and the Islamic Hamas movement, which administers the Gaza Strip.

Israel and the Palestinian militias in the Strip separately announced ceasefires in January 18, to end a three-week-long Israel offensive directed against militants in the salient, prompted by rocket barrages on southern Israel.

Ankara  - The Turkish government has sent a delegation to Damascus to meet exiled Hamas leaders in an attempt to secure the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, CNN-Turk reported on Friday.

CNN-Turk said the delegation had hopes Shalit would be released in the shortest possible time.

Shalit was captured near Gaza in a cross-border raid by Hamas militants in June 2006. Israel has insisted that it will not agree to any long-term truce in the Gaza Strip if Shalit is not released.

Turkish officials have been in contact with Hamas leaders for a number of years and have played an active role in trying to organize a long-term truce in Gaza.

Rafah, Egypt  - A senior Hamas member trying to return to Gaza Thursday after talks with Egyptian mediators was turned back at the Rafah crossing by border guards who found cash in his bags totalling nearly 12 million dollars.

But Senior Hamas member Ayman Taha was allowed back into the strip late Thursday after Egyptian authorities insisted he put the money in a bank in the north Sinai town of Arish, al-Arabiya news channel reported.

London  - The destruction caused to the Gaza Strip in last month's Israeli campaign will cost 15 billion dollars to repair, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in London Thursday.

Abbas, who was speaking after talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said that despite the bitterness and fighting there was "no alternative to peace" in the Middle East.

Brown pledged Britain's support for the reconstruction of Gaza, and urged Israel to allow aid to get through to the victims of the conflict.

Ramallah - Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian near the northern West Bank city of Jenin early Thursday, Palestinian security and medical sources said.

They said the soldiers opened fire at Ala Abu al-Rub, 21, a local leader of the Saraya al-Quds, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, in the village of Qabatya, south of Jenin, and killed him instantly.

Abu al-Rub has been wanted by the Israeli army for years for his anti-occupation activities and has been in hiding. He was killed at his house when he came to see his family, the security sources said.