World Briefs

KIEV, Ukraine – Russia's Gazprom said it could restart gas shipments to Europe on Friday if an agreement can be signed allowing an EU-led monitoring mission to track gas flows through Ukrainian pipelines.

European Union monitors began working Friday in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, but Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said a final agreement on their deployment has yet to be signed. Russia wants monitors in place to prevent what it described as Ukraine's theft of supplies meant for Europe — a charge Kiev hotly denies.

Gazprom halted all natural gas shipments through Ukraine on Wednesday, ending or reducing gas supplies to more than a dozen European nations amid a pricing dispute with Kiev.

JERUSALEM – Israeli jets and helicopters bombarded Gaza Friday and Hamas responded with a barrage of rockets on at least two cities as both sides defied a U.N. call for an immediate cease-fire.

One Israeli air strike killed two Hamas militants and another unidentified man, while another flattened a five-story building in northern Gaza, killing at least seven people, including an infant, Hamas officials said. Israeli aircraft struck more than 30 targets before dawn, and there were constant explosions after first light.

By afternoon, 22 Palestinians had been killed, pushing the death toll to 776 in the two-week-old conflict, according to Gaza health officials who say at least half of those killed were civilians. Thirteen Israelis have also been killed.

GENEVA – THE U. N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called Friday for an independent war crimes investigation in Gaza after reports that Israeli forces shelled a house full of Palestinian civilians, killing 30 people.

Navi Pillay told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council that the harm to Israeli civilians caused by Hamas rockets was unacceptable, but did not excuse any abuses carried out by Israeli forces in response.

Pillay went further in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., saying an incident in Gaza City this week "appears to have all the elements of war crimes."

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Somali pirates released an oil-laden Saudi supertanker after receiving a $3 million ransom, a negotiator for the bandits said Friday.

The MV Sirius Star, a brand new tanker with a 25-member crew, was seized in the Indian Ocean Nov. 15 in a dramatic escalation of the high seas piracy that has plagued the shipping lanes off Somalia.

Mohamed Said, a negotiator with the pirates that held the Saudi tanker, told The Associated Press by telephone the ship had been released and was traveling to "safe waters."