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.

Geneva  - The establishment of a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East would require peace between the region's nations and had to be reached on the basis of free consent, Israel said Thursday.

While the Jewish State supported the idea of a non-conventional weapons-free region "eventually", Israel would have to be part of the process and have its right to exist recognized.

"We would need peace, reconciliation and the recognition of every state's right to live in peace," Meir Itzchaki, the Israeli representative to the Conference on Disarmament, told Deutsche Press- Agentur dpa.

Cairo  - Negotiations between Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo produced scant progress as the third day of talks closed, according to Egyptian media reports.

Cairo's official Middle East News Agency quoted Jamal Yussef, a leading member of Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, as saying an agreement had been reached on "domestic and international security," but he did not specify its substance.

Gaza/Tel Aviv  - Israel attacked smuggling tunnels along the Gaza Strip's southern border with Egypt early Thursday, responding to ongoing rocket and mortar fire from the coastal salient, the Israeli military said.

Two tunnels were destroyed in the overnight airstrike near Rafah, a military spokeswoman said.

She said the strike was a response to the firing of four rockets and one mortar shell by Palestinian militants into southern Israel the previous day.

Gaza militants have fired almost 170 rockets and mortar shells at southern Israeli towns and villages since January 18 when Israel ended a ferocious, 22-day offensive that aimed but has thus far failed to curb such attacks.

Riyadh/Cairo  - A summit hosted by Saudi King Abdullah on Wednesday in Riyadh was aimed at "clearing the air" among the Arab states, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said.

The meeting brought together Abdullah, Syrian President Bashar al- Assad, his Egyptian counterpart Hosny Mubarak and Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.

It was held to iron out relations among the Arab states ahead of Qatar's Arab summit at the end of the month.