News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Defense Minister Ehud Barak is traveling to Egypt Monday and will meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his negotiator Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, according to the French news agency AFP. The Defense Minister will meet Suleiman at a world economic conference at the Red Sea resort Sharm el-Sheikh. Hamas leaders plan to travel to Egypt on Monday.

Suleiman has been mediating between Israel and Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorists concerning a pause or truce in terrorist attacks against Israel and IDF counterterrorist operations.

The Defense Minister's trip comes one day after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that Israel is "very close" to stopping the continuing rocket attacks on Israel. Two rockets hit southern Ashkelon Monday morning, one of them narrowly missing a strategic site.