Al Sinnawi added that he was forced to undress and was kept outside, under the rain and cold weather, before he was attacked, severely beaten and chained.

He added that soldiers also tied his legs to a wooden log and repeatedly hit him on his feet and legs, and that he was badly bleeding and bruised.

"After this incident, I was sent to the interrogation room in Maali Adumin military camp, and there the beating and torture increased", Al sinnawi said, "they tortured me without mercy, I was bleeding from my nose, head, and feet, they also threatened that they will arrest by father and brothers".

Al Sinnawi also said that child detainees are held in room with adults imprisoned for criminal offenses, and that they are barred from continuing their education, and the basic rights guaranteed by the international law.

He called on the international Human Rights Organizations to visit the Israeli prisons and interrogation facilities to observe the harsh living condition the detainees face on daily basis.

Another victim of Israeli arbitrary arrest is Qalqilia resident Dr. Youssef Shanti. Dr. Shanti was arrested during his return to Qalqilia after graduating from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Jordan. Dr. Shanti's family told PNN, "He was returning to the West Bank to work in the Palesinian hospital system. The lawyer told us that the Israeli investigation is revolving around issues that have nothing to do with security." They continued, "It seems that aim of this arrest campaign is to sabotage the education of Palestinian young people."

While some Palestinian students face fear of arrest, others have been banned from travelling altogether. Many promising students accepted to Jordanian and other Arab universities have had to postpone their enrollment until Israeli authorities allow them to travel.

Palestinian sources report that as many as 720 Palestinian students, many of whom attend universities outside Palestine, are currently being held in Israeli custody.

The operation will not entrench Israel in the coastal area, Olmert was quoted as saying by Limor Livnat, a politician who took part in the committee meeting.

Olmert gave no other details to the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, Livnat said.

Israel has been operating in the Gaza Strip since late June, when militants with ties to the ruling Hamas group carried out a cross-border raid on a military outpost in Israel, killing two soldiers and capturing a third.

Olmert also spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday evening, expressing his regret over the recent incident, the statement said.

Last week, German Media reported that two Israeli F-16aircrafts fired two shots when a German helicopter took off from its carrier docking off the Lebanese coast.

An Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman then denied the report. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz also dismissed the reports as completely untrue.

Germany assumed command of a UN naval force off Lebanon about two weeks ago and has sent eight ships and 1,000 service personnel to join the UN peacekeeping mission in the region. The naval force is charged with preventing weapons smuggling and helping maintain a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas.

The 34-day conflict between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah ended on Aug. 14 under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which authorizes an expansion of UN peacekeeping forces to 15,000 troops to help the Lebanese government take control of the southern territories.

On Friday night, leaders of the two rival sects agreed to halt the ongoing street fighting between their gunmen in Gaza Strip.

Fatah movement said it was satisfied with the truce agreement, which also included the content to protect the public buildings and to beef up police and security forces to restore order.

Violence had mounted between Hamas and once-ruling Fatah in the Gaza Strip since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 25.

Situation worsened after Hamas decided to form an auxiliary force and deployed it Gaza Strip. More than 20 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured since the force was formed in early April.

"They requested reinforcements after the Israeli report and also citing fears of Palestinian militants breaching the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt," the official told Reuters in Cairo.

The 5,000 Egyptians were members of the police's central security force. They joined about 750 border guards already deployed along the area known as the Philadelphi Corridor, fearing the possible operation's impact on civilians living on the Egyptian side of the border.

The Israeli daily newspaper Maariv reported on Friday that precision-guided weapons would be used to penetrate deep underground in the hope of destroying the tunnel network that the Jewish state says riddles the area, which is 14 km (8.6 miles) long and approximately 100 metres (330 feet) wide.

The decision to use "smart" bombs may be a substitute to reoccupying the entire region, the newspaper said. Israel says it has been unable to control weapons smuggling into Gaza since it withdrew its forces from the coastal strip last year.

"We are following the situation with extreme concern and we have not received any warnings from the Israeli side about this operation," one Egyptian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Israeli army declined to comment on the report.

An Israeli military source said later on Saturday: "Anything that will take place along the Philadelphi Corridor will be reported to the Egyptian authorities in advance."

DENIAL

A Palestinian security official in Gaza denied reports of further Egyptian forces being deployed along the border line itself.

The official said after consultations with Egyptian counterparts, the number of border police remained at 750.

Israel started to target underground passages in the area after Palestinian militants tunnelled into Israel and captured one of its soldiers in a raid on June 25. The operation also sparked an expanded Israeli military offensive that killed more than 250 Palestinians, about half of them civilians.

Maariv reported the air force was given the green light to drop bombs after a similar campaign successfully destroyed tunnels along the northern Gaza border with Israel.

Egyptian security and border officials said the possible Israeli operation could threaten around 20,000 civilians who live close to the border.

"There are schools, banks, markets and residential buildings close to the border with Gaza, which makes the use of such bombs more dangerous," one official said.

Several Egyptian civilians were killed and many wounded from cross-border bomb shrapnel during Israeli attacks on the Palestinian border town of Rafah before the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Egyptian police recently seized 195 crates of automatic weapons and ammunition meant to be smuggled across the border and the Israeli army said its troops discovered 15 tunnels along the border during the past week.

Israel estimates that tons of munitions, including advanced shoulder-fire missiles, have been smuggled into Gaza through the tunnels, though they have presented scarce evidence that Gaza militants use such weaponry.

He told Xinhua that Egypt would try to persuade Meshaal to help set up a Palestinian national unity government between the ruling Hamas and the Fatah movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

In the meantime, Egypt would invite Hamas and Fatah leaders to Cairo to hold "serious talks" about the establishment of a unity government if Meshaal agreed to help, according to the official.

Meshaal would have visited Cairo several days earlier, said the source, saying that Meshaal may come to Cairo in four or five days if everything goes right.

Egyptian Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awwad told a press conference here that Egypt had invited Meshaal for a visit had done its best to broker negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel on the prisoner swap deal and help major Palestinian political factions to set up a unity government.

The Egyptian official's confirmation came one day after Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of High Education Nasser El-dein al-Sha'er, also a Hamas member, informed that Meshaal would visit Egypt.

Egypt's official news agency MENA reported, citing well-informed Palestinian sources, that Hamas planned to agree with the formation of a coalition government, which it preferred to last only for a specific period of one year before holding legislative and presidential elections.

Hamas has been at loggerheads with Fatah led by Abbas in the last several months, especially in the last several weeks after talks between Abbas and Hamas leaders over forming a national unity government deadlocked due to Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel.

As for the prisoner swap, the deal for the release of Shalit was almost ready and a new formula of the deal had been sent to Israel lately for study.

So far, Egyptian officials have been actively coordinating a prisoners' swap, which involved Israeli soldier Shalit, who was kidnapped and held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza since June, and the Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Earlier, Israeli Minister of Infrastructure Benyamin Ben-Eliezer had said during his visit in Cairo on Oct. 19, that an Egypt-brokered swap deal between Israel and the Palestinians was vetoed by Meshaal.

Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, maintains good relations with both Israel and the Palestinians, and has long been playing a mediating role between the Palestinians and Israel.