TEL AVIV, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Saturday kicked off a 24-hour visit to the region for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders ahead of a US peace meeting planned for later this month.

Kouchner headed straight into talks with Tel Aviv with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak before going to Jerusalem where he was to meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday.

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The Palestinians have written to the US government demanding a complete freeze on the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, a senior official said on Saturday.

The demand comes amid intense talks between Israeli and Palestinians in an effort to reach understandings on a solution to the Middle East conflict ahead of a US-sponsored peace meeting planned for the end of this month.

JERUSALEM, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Palestinian militants fired two rockets into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on Friday, but they exploded without causing casualties, Israeli military sources said.

One rocket hit the town of Sderot and damaged several parked cars, while the second struck an open field, the sources said.

Sderot is around five kilometres (three miles) east of the Gaza Strip, from where militants regularly fire rockets and mortar shells into Israel.

GAZA CITY, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The New York-based Human Rights Watch group has called for the Hamas-run government in Gaza to set up an independent probe into shootings at a rally that killed eight people, calling the violence excessive and indiscriminate.

HRW in a statement on Friday welcomed a pledge by sacked Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya of the Islamist Hamas movement that it had ordered a 'strong and objective' inquiry into the circumstances of Monday's clashes.

PARIS, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Monday to discuss Iran's nuclear drive and Middle East peace efforts.

Sarkozy welcomed the Israeli leader at the presidential palace for their first meeting since he took office in May, vowing to step up pressure on Iran to halt its sensitive nuclear activities.

Olmert was expected to hear strong support for efforts to halt Iran's uranium enrichment, which the Jewish state and the West believe is aimed at developing an atomic bomb, a claim denied by Tehran.

JERUSALEM, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Israel said on Monday it has received a poignant letter written by an airman who has been missing for more than 20 years, following a rare prisoner swap with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Ron Arad, a national hero in Israel who has never been officially declared dead, wrote the letter to his wife Tami in 1986, shortly after he was captured in Lebanon during the civil war after ejecting from his fighter-bomber.

NABLUS, West Bank, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - An eight-year-old Palestinian girl who was shot by Israeli forces at the weekend died of her injuries in a West Bank hospital on Monday, a Palestinian medical official said.

Zeina Fadi Hamad was seriously wounded when Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters clashed in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem on Saturday.

The Israeli army has denied any involvement in Hamad's shooting, saying its troops did not operate in Tulkarem that day.

JERUSALEM, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Violent clashes flared between prison guards and Palestinian inmates at a Israeli jail deep in the desert on Monday, leaving dozens of detainees and gaolers injured, officials said.

The Prisoners Club, the main group representing Palestinians held in Israel, said the clashes broke out at Ketziot prison in the southern Negev desert after guards started what it termed 'provocative' cell searches.

JERUSALEM, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Clashes broke out between prison guards and Palestinian inmates at an Israeli jail on Monday, leaving 17 detainees and staff members injured, a Palestinian prisoners' association said.

The Prisoners Club, the main group representing Palestinians held in Israel, said clashes broke out at the Ketziot prison in the southern Negev desert after guards started what it termed 'provocative' cell searches.

Palestinian detainees responded by throwing things at the guards, who used means of riot dispersal to break up the protest, the group said.

PARIS, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Monday to discuss Iran's nuclear drive and Middle East peace efforts.

Olmert was expected to hear strong support for efforts to halt Iran's uranium enrichment, which the Jewish state and the West believe is aimed at developing an atomic bomb, a claim denied by Tehran.

Olmert is returning to Paris and London for the second time in two years, fresh from talks in Moscow on Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who visited Tehran last week.