JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A gunman shot dead four people execution-style in a bank in Israel on Monday after being refused an overdraft and cash from its automatic teller machine. The assailant, identified by media reports as a former paramilitary border policeman, killed himself after police raided the Bank Hapoalim branch in the southern city of Beersheba to free his hostages.

Germany on Monday called for "visible" progress in implementing a landmark deal between Serbia and Kosovo before securing Berlin's backing for Belgrade's bid to join the European Union. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle hailed the April 19 EU-brokered agreement to normalise ties between Serbia and its former southern province as "historic" but said momentum needed to be continued. "Such historic circumstances do not occur every day, and when they occur they have to be grabbed," Westerwelle told reporters after meeting top Serbian officials in Belgrade.

A car bomb exploded near a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims north of Baghdad on Monday, killing eight people, police and a local official said. The bombing also wounded at least 15 people, the officials said. str-mah/wd/jds

Rebels from the M23 movement and the army fought Monday just north of Goma, a regional capital in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo which the rebels occupied briefly last November, both sides said. The fighting was the first involving M23 since December and erupted just two days before UN chief Ban Ki-moon was due to visit the region, including Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. The clashes also came a week after the first troops from a new UN intervention brigade arrived in the country with a strong mandate to attack rebel groups.