Hizbullah is more dangerous than militant groups operating in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli army general said, expressing belief that the party has dug tunnels across the border from Lebanon in preparation for any future war with the Jewish State.

As a result of the greater threat from Hizbullah and in the event of a future conflict, the Israeli army will have to take “many more decisive acts and employ much more power” than it did in Gaza, Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan, commander of Israeli forces on the Lebanese and Syrian fronts, told Army Radio on Wednesday.

Thousands of civil servants in the Gaza Strip queued outside post offices Wednesday, waiting to receive their first paycheck from the Palestinian unity government, Agence France-Presse correspondents said.

However, thousands more -- all holding jobs in the military and security services -- were not being paid and it was unclear if and when they would be.

Egypt began setting up a buffer zone along its border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip on Wednesday to prevent militant infiltration and arms smuggling following a wave of deadly attacks.

The move, which will see about 800 homes demolished, comes in the wake of a suicide bombing in the Sinai Peninsula Friday that killed at least 30 soldiers.

Israeli-Palestinian talks on a lasting Gaza truce are to resume after mid-November, instead of Monday as initially planned, the chief Palestinian negotiator Azzam al-Ahmad told AFP Sunday.

The announcement came after other Palestinian officials said the talks had been postponed due to Egypt's closure of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip.

Last year's feel-good winner of the TV singing contest Arab Idol said Wednesday he wants to give back to Gaza, where he grew up, by setting up an arts center nurturing young musicians, writers and actors.

The center would be funded by Palestinian Americans who have pledged support, Mohammed Assaf, 24, said in an interview in the Gaza City office of The Associated Press.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi will lead a ministerial delegation to war-ravaged Gaza on October 23, an official said Thursday.

The delegation will include Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah and Mauritanian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ould Teguedi, the League official told reporters in Cairo.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon made a brief visit Tuesday to war-ravaged Gaza, two days after donor states pledged $5.4 billion in aid to rebuild it after a devastating Israeli offensive.

He was driven through the ruins of Gaza City's Shejaiya neighborhood and the nearby Jabaliya refugee camp, the scenes of some of the heaviest Israeli shelling in this summer's conflict.

British lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state on Monday, in a non-binding motion heavy with symbolism but unlikely to change government policy.

The motion was passed by 274 in favor to 12 votes against, to "recognize the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution".

The foreign minister of Israel, which was not invited to an international conference Sunday in Cairo on rebuilding Gaza, said any such effort would need his country's consent.

"Gaza cannot be rebuilt without the cooperation and participation of Israel," Avigdor Lieberman said in an interview with news website Ynet.

International donors pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to rebuild the battered Gaza Strip on Sunday and urged Israel and the Palestinians to renew peace efforts.

Gas-rich Qatar led the way at a donors conference in Cairo with a promise of $1 billion in aid to the coastal enclave, devastated by its 50-day summer conflict with Israel.