New York - An inquiry into damage inflicted to UN properties and people who may have been killed there during the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is expected to be completed later this month, a UN spokeswoman said Monday.

The investigation by the UN board of inquiry was ordered by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon after the UN suffered extensive damage to its offices and schools for Palestinian children in Gaza as a result of Israeli airstrikes.

Tel Aviv  - Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert postponed a cabinet meeting on a prisoner exchange with Hamas until Tuesday because of continuing negotiations in Cairo.

"It should be emphasized that as of yet, there is no sign that indicates a result in any particular direction in the negotiations," a statement from Olmert said Monday, the day the meeting was scheduled.

The prime minister is seeking to obtain the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit before he leaves office this week.

Gaza  - Egypt has invited the Damascus-based leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to Cairo to join talks aimed at reconciling Palestinian factions and forming a "national unity" government, a Palestinian news agency reported Saturday.

Gaza's Sama news agency quoted "high-ranking Palestinian sources" as saying that Egypt sent official invitations to exiled top Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Ramadan Shallah, chief of Islamic Jihad in Syria, to join the Cairo talks. The two leaders will arrive later this week in Cairo, Sama reported.

Cairo/Berlin  - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has accused some Arab leaders of complicity in Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip in December and January, according to an audio tape aired by broadcaster al-Jazeera Saturday.

In the recording - which could not be authenticated - bin Laden called Arab leaders "hypocrites" and said that "liberating Jerusalem needed honest Arab leadership."

Gaza City  - Palestinian reconciliation negotiators in Cairo signed an agreement to prohibit fighting or the use of weapons to settle internal disputes, a Palestinian academic said Saturday.

The agreement was ratified as rival Palestinian factions continued intense talks to reach an agreement on broader issues such as the formation of a unity government to replace the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip and the Western-backed government in the West Bank formed by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah movement.

Gaza City  - Israel's recent, 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip aimed at curbing rocket attacks from the salient killed 1,434 Palestinians, two-third of them civilians, a Palestinian rights group announced overnight, publishing the results of an investigation.

Thirteen Israelis were killed and several dozen wounded during the offensive, the victims of either ground fighting or Palestinian rockets.