A Palestinian woman who fled her north Lebanon refugee camp two days ago says there was so little food there that she was prepared to eat cats to survive.

Turkey’s army has boosted troop levels in the restive southeast to more than 200,000, most of them stationed along the border with Iraq, security sources told Reuters on Friday.

Hamas yesterday rejected as “unconstitutional” the government sworn in by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Friday. The Islamist movement wants to convene parliament to vote on the government, but Abbas’ Fateh faction has already said it will not attend any such session.

Rival Lebanese politicians met at a state-owned chateau near Paris on Saturday in a French-sponsored attempt to discuss ways of ending the eight-month-old political crisis gripping their country.

Lebanon’s army resumed its bombardment of Al Qaeda-inspired gunmen entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp on Saturday, pounding them with artillery and tank fire, a senior military official said.

King Abdullah has said regional peace can only be sustained if people in the Middle East have the opportunity to “lead a productive and satisfying life”.

At least 12 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in a series of bomb blasts and an exchange of fire with fighters in the northwest region of the country.

Osama bin Laden praised martyrdom in a new videotape posted on a Web site on Sunday by Al Qaeda’s media production wing.

The British military death rate in Iraq is proportionally worse than that of the United States, for the first time since the 2003 invasion, The Sunday Telegraph newspaper said.

The Lebanese army has continued its bombardment of the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp with artillery and tank fire, a senior military official has said.