WORLD NEWS

JERUSALEM: A flurry of Middle East diplomacy was marred on Thursday when a man in Israel was killed by a rocket fired from Gaza while the EU foreign policy chief visited the Palestinian enclave.

An agricultural worker, reportedly from Thailand, was killed when the rocket slammed into a kibbutz just a few kilometres (couple of miles) from the Gaza border.

The attack, claimed by Ansar al-Sunna Brigade, came just as EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was visiting the impoverished coastal strip which is still struggling with the aftermath of the 22-day offensive Israel launched in December 2008 in a bid to halt rocket fire.

"I condemn any kind of violence," Ashton told journalists after the attack. "We need to move forward to get the peace process to move toward a successful resolution."

Following her visit to the region, Ashton was to head to Moscow to join US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for a meeting of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet.

Ban in turn plans to visit the Middle East, including Gaza, after the Moscow meeting, hoping to promote new peace talks whose outlook appears bleak amid mounting tension in the region as well as between Israel and the United States.

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who brokered a now troubled deal for indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians on a previous visit, is due back in the region on Sunday, a senior Palestinian official said.

Mitchell had initially planned to visit this week but he postponed his trip amid a major row between Israel and the United States over the announcement of 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers in annexed Arab east Jerusalem.

The announcement infuriated the Palestinians and threatened to unravel the hard won deal for proximity.

Washington was all the more angered as the announcement was made while Vice President Joe Biden was in Jerusalem promoting the talks, but President Barack Obama has insisted there is no crisis.

"We and the Israeli people have a special bond that's not going to go away," he said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday night.

He called on both Israelis and Palestinians to "take steps to make sure that we can rebuild trust."

Hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet held a late night session to discuss its answer to the US administration's criticism amid concern that delaying the keenly awaited response would further exacerbate the rift between the two allies.