Beirut  - The Lebanon representative of the radical Palestinian movement Hamas said Tuesday the outcome of the Israeli parliamentary elections would decide whether a truce between Gaza and Israel is possible.

"It all depends on the outcome of the Israeli elections. If the right-wing Likud party wins, I don't think that the current government will be able to reach an agreement regarding a long-term truce in Gaza, If the current government wins, they could reach an agreement," Ousama Hamdan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

New York  - Children in the Gaza Strip continued to suffer and feel insecure despite a ceasefire that has mostly ended three weeks of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, the UN special envoy for children and armed conflict said Monday.

Radihika Coomaraswamy said grave violations of child rights had been committed during the fighting that began on December 27 when the Israeli Defense Forces launched airstrikes against Hamas militants who had been firing rockets and mortars into southern Israel.

Gaza City - Palestinian medical staff said Monday that the Israeli military killed a Palestinian youth in the northern Gaza Strip.

They said they picked up the body of Khaled al-Kafarana, 22, from an area near the border between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun.

Al-Kafarana was killed by a missile fired by an Israeli helicopter overnight, as he apparently tried to infiltrate into Israeli territory.

Israeli aircraft also struck a police station of the Hamas administration in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

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.

Cairo  - An Egyptian opposition politician will face military trial on Thursday in the Suez Canal town of Ismailiya on charges of crossing into the Gaza Strip illegally, sources told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa on Tuesday.

Magdi Hussein, a fiery orator from Egypt's suspended Labour Party, was detained last Saturday when he came back to Egypt after spending a week in the Strip.

Gaza City  - Israeli F16 warplanes rocketed tunnels and a Hamas outpost in two separate airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip Tuesday evening, witnesses said.

At least two rockets struck the border area between the southern Gaza town of Rafah and Egypt, they said, adding they heard two successive loud explosions in the area and the sound of F16s flying overheard.

One missile also hit a a post of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, the radical Islamic movement ruling Gaza. No injuries were reported in either of the strikes.