Tel Aviv - United States special envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel Wednesday evening on the latest leg of a trip in the region to kickstart stalled peace efforts.

Mitchell met Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv shortly after arriving in the country. On Thursday he will meet new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. It will be his first meeting with them since they took office at the end of last month.

Ankara - The separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) on Monday announced a unilateral ceasefire to last until June 1, the PKK-linked Firat news agency reported. A statement released by PKK political commanders in Iraq, said that the time was ripe for a political solution to the Kurdish problem in Turkey, noting that the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) had done extremely well in local elections on March 29.

"The result of the elections were very clear - that it is necessary for democratization in Turkey and a democratic solution to the Kurdish problem," the statement said.

Beirut - Five Lebanese soldiers were killed and 11 others wounded when their convoy was ambushed in eastern Lebanon, Army sources said Monday. Three soldiers died immediately in the ambush on an army convoy in the area of Riyak, in eastern Lebanon, while two others died later in a hospital from serious wounds, among them a major, army sources said.

Eleven others are still in hospital being treated for moderate wounds, hospital sources in the area said.

The Bekaa Valley has always been known to be the main production area of illegal drugs, mainly hashish.

Cairo  - Egypt's public prosecutor on Wednesday accused Hezbollah of sending operatives to Egypt to carry out attacks in the country and to smuggle weapons and money to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement released Wednesday evening Abdel-Magid Mohammed accused Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah of dispatching agents to Egypt during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza  - Leaders of the rival Hamas and Fatah movements held a meeting in Hamas-ruled Gaza on Wednesday to discuss reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and mutual reconciliation.

The meeting between the two movements' leaders is the first of its kind since Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007 following weeks of bloodshed between the two groups' warring militants.

Four Fatah leaders, headed by Abdallah el-Ifranji arrived at the office of Hamas spokesman in Gaza Ayman Taha to hold talks with four Hamas leaders headed by senior Hamas leader Salah el-Bardawil.

Cairo  - A public prosecutor in Cairo on Wednesday accused Hezbollah of plotting attacks in Egypt, the Interior Ministry said.

Egypt's domestic intelligence agency, State Security Investigations, supplied the prosecutor with information indicating that leaders of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Islamist group, sent members to Egypt to gather recruits for its organisation, a source in Egypt's Interior Ministry told the German Press Agency dpa on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.