HIGHLIGHTS: Resistance Kills Collaborator in Gaza||Israeli Cabinet Authorizes More Peres-Palestinian Talks||Baz Meets Israeli Transport Minister as Israel Steps up Diplomatic Drive to Oust Arafat|| STORY: Breaking a lull of several weeks, Israeli fighter jets were deployed over the Southern Gaza Strip on Sunday and fired missiles at a building, destroying it and injuring about 10 Palestinians, witnesses and hospital officials said. (Read photo caption)

Separately, a Palestinian teen-ager was killed in the northern Gaza Strip after Israeli tanks moved into the area, Palestinians said. And in the West Bank, Israeli troops killed a 24-year-old Palestinian who, the occupation army said, had tried to attack occupation soldiers in their jeep.

In the airstrike, three Israeli helicopters and two fighter planes were in the sky at the time the missile struck the three-story building Qarara, near the southern town of Khan Younis, witnesses said.

Occupation army sources said a fighter jet had attacked the building claiming it served as a laboratory for making explosives recently used against occupation forces in Gaza

Residents said the building was empty at the time of the attack, but the flying debris injured about 10 people and destroyed the building.

A Hamas member, Ahmed Abdel Wahab, had lived in the building until his death several months ago, residents said.

A relative, Yusef Abdel Wahab, is a member of Hamas' military wing and had been living in the building. He left only moments before Sunday's strike and was not harmed.

RESISTANCE KILLS COLLABORATOR

A Palestinian man on trial in Gaza for collaborating with Israel to kill Palestinians was shot and killed by Resistance men, a judge said.

Court proceedings for Abdel Hai Sababi, 48, had gone into recess and Sababi was in a detention room when the Israeli aircraft fired the missiles not far from the court, said Brig. Gen. Abdel Aziz Wadi, chairman of the court.

During the chaos that followed, some members of Hamas broke into the detention room and fatally shot Sababi, Wadi said.

ISRAELI CABINET AUTHORIZES PERES PALESTINIAN TALKS

The violence came as the Israeli Cabinet confirmed plans for Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and other Israeli officials to meet "in the coming days" with Palestinian Cabinet members, a statement from Sharon's office said.

Israeli officials postponed the third round of talks Saturday night, saying they needed more time to consult among themselves before discussing ways to improve the economic situation among Palestinians.

Ranaan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the meeting with the Palestinians wouldn't deal with any political issues, just economic ones. Political negotiations would only take place "after there is a different Palestinian Authority and there are full-fledged, comprehensive reforms," he said.

The United States has said it won't deal with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and has demanded a host of reforms in the Palestinian financial, security, judicial and political apparatus.

ISRAELI MINISTER HOLDS TALKS WITH SENIOR EGYPTIAN OFFICIAL

Israeli Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh met in Cairo Thursday with Osama el-Baz, the Egyptian president's political adviser, for several hours of closed talks.

El-Baz told reporters the meeting was part of Egypt's diplomatic efforts concerning the situation in the Palestinian territories.
"We listened to Sneh's point of view on the situation as a member of the Labor party in the Israeli government," el-Baz said, without elaborating.

Last week, Eyptian President Hosni Mubarak sent his intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, to Israel and the Palestinian territories to try to curb Israel's military incursion into the West Bank.

At the same time, plans tol pitch its case for banishing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from peacemaking to Egypt's president on Monday but may elicit only a polite hearing from the key Arab world player. 

The war of words shadowing 21 months of Middle East conflict has heated up ahead of key talks set for Tuesday between the "Quartet" of would-be peace brokers -- the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia -- that will focus on President Bush's vision of a final settlement.

A senior Israeli political source said the meeting between Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak fitted in with Israel's effort to convince the international community, "and especially the Arab world," that Arafat must leave the political stage for diplomacy to revive.

European powers including Russia do not share that view.

And Mubarak has said that only Arafat, the reigning icon of Palestinian nationhood ambitions since the 1960s, wields the gravitas among Palestinians to pin down peace with Israel.

PHOTO CAPTION

A view of a destroyed building is seen in Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip Sunday July 14, 2002. Breaking a lull of several weeks, Israel deployed military aircraft Sunday over the southern Gaza Strip and fired missiles at the building, destroying it and injuring about 10 Palestinians, witnesses and hospital officials said.(AP Photo/STR)
- Jul 14 1:43 PM ET