A year and a bit after the ill-fated interception of the Mavi Marmara that headed last year's flotilla to Gaza, Israel is bracing for another one. This time around, say authorities, they are more prepared, having learned the lessons from operations to public relations and media. (We'll get back to that second point later.)

Israel launched a diplomatic, legal and bureaucratic offensive to prevent the flotilla well in advance and for months has been appealing to governments to block their citizens' efforts to participate, with a certain degree of success. Easing restrictions on goods entering Gaza certainly helped, as has the recent Egyptian decision to open the Raffah crossing, which Israel did not like but quickly recognized as advantageous in this context.

The ships are supposed to rendevous in the Mediterranean and then sail to Gaza but some of the likely candidates in the region are dropping out. Cyprus has announced it will not let the ships in, Greece will let them in but is stalling them with red tape at Israel's request, activists complain. Greece has its own issues this week and will have limited energy to spend on this, one way or the other.

Elsewhere in Europe, delegations met with problems as insurance companies were reluctant to issue policies for the ships and their passengers, after an Israeli legal group, Shurat Hadin, sent letters to the world's leading marine insurance companies advising them they could be held accountable for damages and complicit to violating the law. Other initiatives seek to block satellite communications services to the ships.

The Turkey-based IHH was to be the biggest contingent of the flotilla, its massive passenger ship the largest by far of the dozens of vessels originally slated to sail. Last week the organization announced the ship was staying home.

Icy relations between Israel and Turkey, once-tight allies, are thawing out these days. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan on his reelection, then deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon reached out to Turkish journalists and vice prime minister Moshe Yaalon was dispatched abroad for discreet talks with Turkish counterparts.

With Syria's troubles spilling into its backyard, Turkey may have bigger fish to fry at this time -- and both countries seem keen to work things out in advance of the United Nations report on the 2010 flotilla. Turkey was not impressed with the early draft and Israeli media suggest the final report, currently due early July, is still pretty critical of Turkey. And Israel, for its part, always needs all the friends it can get.

In recent weeks, the military completed a series of comprehensive drills for intercepting the next flotilla. Netanyahu is determined to uphold the naval blockade, which Israel says aims only to prevent gunrunning to Hamas-ruled Gaza and not against Palestinian civilians. On Monday, the security cabinet approved the operational plan presented by the army.

Israel has reached understandings with Egypt about the ships docking in El Arish and inspecting the cargo before transfer to Gaza by land in case participants decline Israel's invitation to dock at its Ashdod port -- as expected. There's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, repeat Israeli spokespeople, who call the flotilla a provocation.

The organizers and activists are equally determined to sail for Gaza and are undeterred by the difficulties. And if Israel has eased up some on Gaza, well, if anything, this just proves flotillas work, says the Free Gaza movement . At a news conference in Athens on Monday, organizers said the 10 ships taking part in the voyage would gather at sea toward the weekend before heading to Gaza.

Meanwhile, until any encounter at sea, the skirmish is being waged on YouTube and all sides are uploading fast and furious -- some straightforward, others kind of clever.

And back to that media lesson learned. One of the main problems Israel had getting its message across last time (besides the message) was the long delay in releasing timely visual images and information from the scene while the operation was still ongoing, leaving the media stage to activists and semi-professionals and an anti-Israeli angle. For weeks, Israeli officials have been stressing the importance of the media battlefield and assuring outlets that professional and credible material will be much more timely.

That's good. Less good was the letter from Government Press Office director Oren Helman on Sunday, warning foreign press they could be deported and banned from working in Israel for 10 years if they participated in the flotilla. Besides infuriating both local and international media, the move seems to have embarassed Netanyahu, who ordered the directive be rethought.

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem 

Video, from top: An Israeli Defense Forces video explains the Gaza naval blockade from the official Israeli perspective; activist Yonatan Shapira, an Israeli combat pilot who has become an outspoken critic of his county's policies, discusses his reasons for joining the flotilla. Credit: YouTube

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement was quick Sunday to ease fears regarding a decision to postpone a meeting between Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal that had been planned for Tuesday in Cairo.

Fatah officials said the decision had to do with Abbas’ busy schedule and did not necessarily mean the reconciliation process between the two rival factions is faltering.

Fatah and Hamas signed a reconciliation agreement early in May after four years of bitter and sometimes violent rivalry. The agreement called for establishing a unity government with the goal of holding general elections within a year and to rebuild the Gaza Strip, devastated after five years of the Israeli blockade and military assaults.

Forming the unity government has become a stumbling block in the reconciliation effort. Fatah wants current Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to run the new government because it believes the Western-backed Fayyad will be able to prevent an international blockade against the new government because of Hamas involvement. Hamas, however, does not trust Fayyad. 

When the two sides failed to agree on a prime minister during their meeting last week, they called on Abbas and Meshaal to sit together to resolve the issue.

Azzam Ahmad, who heads Fatah's delegation to the reconciliation talks and who announced the postponement after meeting Abbas in Ramallah, insisted that it was Abbas’ busy schedule that had led to the delay.

Abbas is going to be in Turkey on Wednesday and then in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday to address the European Parliament. Ahmad said it was better to give the two leaders time to discuss the complex issue without any interruptions. For this reason, it was believed better to postpone the meeting rather than risk having to end it before an agreement is reached.

Hamas did not seem too thrilled with the postponement. Hamas' leader in Gaza, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said Sunday that "we were ready for this meeting and we wanted it to tackle all issues in order to have a government of conciliation."

Damascus-based Hamas official, Izzat Rishk, a hard-liner, said Fatah postponed the meeting because it could not get Hamas to agree to Fayyad as prime minister.

Abbas has a lot to risk if the new government is run by a prime minister who is not acceptable to the United States and Europe. Israel is already threatening to again stop transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority. It collects over $100 million in customs duties and taxes on Palestinian-imported goods coming through it ports. These funds account for two-thirds of the monthly salaries of Palestinian public employees, and 150,000 employees will go unpaid if Israel halts remittance.

In a news conference Sunday with the president of the Dominican Republic in Ramallah, Abbas reiterated that the new government would follow his policies, which is based on reaching a solution to the Middle East conflict based on peaceful negotiations with Israel and that will continue the policies of Fayyad’s West Bank-based government.

Hamas does not seem to object, but it does not want Fayyad to be the key person in the new government.

— Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

Just a week after Egypt reopened its border crossing to Gaza Strip, Palestinians found Saturday that the checkpoint was temporarily closed without warning and they complained that leaving the enclave is not as simple as they expected it would be.

Egyptian officials at the Rafah crossing said the terminal was closed for technical problems and maintenance. By the afternoon, they said Gazans could cross to the Egyptian side, but only on foot rather than using the usual buses. They did not say when the border would reopen fully.

Officials for Hamas, which controls Gaza, rejected the new terms and called upon Egypt to open the crossing as promised.

On Saturday, hundreds of frustrated Palestinian travelers stormed the Egyptian gate of Rafah crossing after learning about the restrictions.

"I have completed my documents at the Palestinian side and have got my passport stamped. But I was surprised that the Egyptians closed the borders," said Nasser Bayed, who wants to go to Egypt for bone marrow surgery.

"My husband is so sick. He needs an urgent surgery in the heart and he may die here if he is not allowed to cross today," said Abla Farra, from inside an ambulance that carried her husband at the Egyptian gate of the crossing.

Hamas blamed Egypt for hindering the traffic of Palestinian travelers, saying Egyptian authorities have sent back scores of passengers over the last week for security reasons.

About 5,000 Palestinians, most of them members of Hamas, are reportedly on a blacklist used by Egyptian security officials to prevent extremists or terrorists from crossing the border.

Israel has voiced concerns that Hamas will take advantage of the border opening to bring fighters and weapons to Gaza.

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-- Ahmed Aldabba in Rafah

Photo: Palestinians shout in front of Egyptian soldiers at the iron gate of the Rafah border crossing from the Gaza Strip. Credit: Eyad Baba / Associated Press.

As part of a statehood bid they plan to bring before the U.N. this September, Palestinians are pushing for the creation of a new Palestine Central Bank and the introduction of new currency.

But Jihad Al-Wazir, 48, governor of the Palestinian Monetary Authority, which hopes to soon evolve into the first central bank, says work is needed before reintroducing the Palestinian pound.

“We do not expect that in September we would wake up the next day and find the Palestinian pound all over the place,’’ he told the Los Angeles Times recently. “That’s not going to happen. The way it looks now, people would like it in the first week and enjoy the fact that the pound is back, but would they put it in their pocket and use it the next day? That would be the challenge.”

Q: Are we going to see the emergence of a Palestinian central bank and a currency any time soon?

A: Rather than focus on printing money, the focus is on ensuring that an economic system, economic transmission mechanism and the proper infrastructure for successful currency are in place before we discuss the issue of issuing currency. Everything [is being] done not to focus on simply printing Monopoly money, but to ensure that the macroeconomic framework of the Palestinian economy is conducive to the proper conduct of monetary policy. We are working on introducing the central banking law, which will ensure the independence of the central bank. So once these elements are there, then it becomes possible to conduct proper monetary policy in a small open economy like ours and to be sure that once we issue the currency, we will not become like typical third-world currencies with hyper-inflation and so on.

Hamas officials on Saturday denied reports that its top leaders are planning to move from Syria and relocate to Qatar or another Arab country.

“The leadership will remain there," said Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan. "As far as I know, we were not told to move to any other country.”

The London-based Alhayat newspaper reported Saturday that the Syrian government demanded Hamas leaders, who have been based in Damascus for about a decade, leave. The newspaper said that Qatar had agreed to receive the movement’s politburo leader, Khaled Mashaal.

According to the report, the Syrian decision came out of anger because of Hamas' neutral stance on the current turmoil in Syria.

Hamas rulers in the Gaza Strip said Tuesday that a man suspected of killing an Italian pro-Palestinian activist in the territory committed suicide during a tense police standoff.

The suspect, a Jordanian citizen, shot himself after he hurled a grenade at two of his partners, critically injuring one of them, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said in a statement published on its website.

Three policemen were injured during an exchange of fire, the statement added.

Hours after an Islamist extremist group announced it had kidnapped an Italian peace activist in the Gaza Strip, the man's body was discovered in the restive seaside territory. It was the first kidnapping of a Westerner in four years and one of the few times such an abduction has ended fatally.

The hostage, Vittorio Arrigoni, a pro-Palestinian activist for the advocacy group the International Solidarity Movement, had appeared blindfolded in an Internet video released by the Tawhid and Jihad group, which threatened to kill him unless its imprisoned leader and two other members of radical groups were freed by Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza.

The group set a deadline of Friday evening, but Arrigoni’s body was found by Hamas police well short of that, Hamas officials said. They said they had arrested two suspects and were searching for a third. Hamas said it "condemns the heinous crime that does not reflect our values, our religion or our custom and tradition," according to an Interior Ministry statement released to Palestinian news media.

But the kidnapping raised questions about Hamas' control over Gaza, and it represents the latest example of how smaller, more radical groups in the territory -– some with alleged ties to Al Qaeda -– are challenging the rule of Hamas, which itself is viewed by Israel and the United States as a terrorist organization.Those groups complain that Hamas has become too moderate.

Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, has been cracking down on Islamist Salafists over the last 18 months, arresting their members and killing one of their spiritual leaders during an armed clash in August 2009.

Gaza residents said Arrigoni arrived in 2009 aboard a ship challenging the Israeli naval blockade after the 2008-09 Israeli offensive in Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. His abduction was the first of a foreigner since Hamas took control of the territory. The last foreigner kidnapped here was BBC reporter Alan Johnston, who was abducted in March 2007 and released three months later.

-- Ahmed Aldabba in Gaza City

Several Israeli tank shells landed Tuesday at a playground in Gaza City, killing three children and their grandfather and injuring 12 other children and women, hospital sources and witnesses said.

Eyewitnesses said that seven tank shells slammed a playground where children were playing soccer, adding two other shells crashed through the ceiling of a nearby house, injuring six women.

Relatives of those killed said they prevented a group of Palestinian militants from firing mortars into Israel from an area that is adjacent to their houses just half an hour before Israeli tanks fired the shells.

But militants waited until people went for prayers at the neighborhood’s mosque and sent a round of mortar shells beyond the Israel-Gaza borderline, which is a little less than half a mile away from the bombed area.

“I was going out of the mosque when the shells hit the kids,” said Mohammed Helo 42, the children's uncle, at the morgue of Shifa hospital in Gaza, where the bodies were taken. “I did not know what was going on. All I heard was thunderous explosions then the moans of people who were just walking by. Limbless bodies were scattered all around.”

Adham Abu Selmiya, head of the emergency department in the Hamas Ministry of Health, said three children and a man from the same family were killed in the attack. He said the children ranged in age from 9 years old to 13 years old.

Hamas rulers of Gaza said what happened was a war crime, stressing that Israeli attacks will not keep the Palestinian people to from defending themselves.

“We are doing our best to avoid violence with Israel, but the Israelis continue to escalate their aggressions against us,” Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri told reporters in Gaza.

The Israeli army confirmed the shelling and apologized for the killing of civilians, ordering an investigation into the incident.

The new escalation at the Gaza-Israel borders threaten an informal cease-fire that Hamas kept since the 22-day Israeli offensive on Gaza ended early 2009.

Hamas and other Gaza militants have fired at least 60 homemade missiles and mortar shells at Israel since Saturday.

-- Ahmed Aldabba in Gaza City

Derar Abu Sisi, an engineer and deputy manager of the Gaza power plant, was reported missing last month in Ukraine after he boarded a train to Kiev but never made it. 

First, bloggers reported it. Then came the mainstream foreign press, and finally, the story made it into the Israeli press via the revolving-door practice of censorship-approved quoting of foreign reports and maybe a few "I know but can't tell you" hints too. Israeli readers are accustomed to reading between the lines. A Palestinian human rights group has also now published Abu Sisi's account of his abduction.

A petition filed by an Israeli rights non-governmental organization wrested from the court permission for Israeli media to report with authority the basic information already out there, that the Palestinian engineer from Gaza is being held in Israel. Abu Sisi is in Shikma prison in southern Israel while being investigated. The gag order was only partially lifted and the full Israeli version of the circumstances of how he went missing in Ukraine and turned up in Israel won't be cleared for publication in Israel for another 30 days.

According to foreign reports, Abu Sisi arrived in Ukraine — where he had studied for a decade and earned his doctorate in electrical engineering — in late January. A few weeks later he boarded a late-night train to Kiev, where he was to meet a friend before going to the airport to meet his brother Yousef,  who was coming in from Holland and whom he hadn't seen in years.

A few hours after the train arrived with no Abu Sisi, his brother reported the engineer missing. Veronika, the engineer's Ukrainian wife, accused Israel's  Mossad intelligence agency of abducting her husband with the purpose of gaining information to sabotage the Gaza power plant. She told the press she didn't know what to tell their six children about their father, who had "disappeared off a train in a democratic country."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday declared a new initiative to end the division in the Palestinian ranks. He announced at a meeting in Ramallah of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council that he is ready to travel “tomorrow” to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to end the split.

"I am ready to go to Gaza tomorrow to end the division," Abbas said, "and form a government of independent nationalist figures to prepare for presidential and legislative elections, as well as elections for the Palestinian National Council [the PLO’s parliament-in-exile], within six months or as soon as possible.”

Abbas called on Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who heads the government in Gaza and is a former prime minister whom Abbas had fired in 2007, to make the necessary arrangements with other factions  in Gaza to meet him at the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza. Abbas said he hopes the arrangements will be ready in the next few days.

Hamas, which has been referring to Abbas as the president whose term has expired, was quick to respond, and it welcomed Abbas’ initiative.  Hamas officials said that Abbas’ initiative came in response to an invitation Haniyeh had made to Abbas on Tuesday to meet him in Gaza or anywhere else to discuss reconciliation.

But Abbas made it very clear that he is not going to Gaza to discuss reconciliation or to hold dialogue with Hamas. Rather, he is willing to go for only one reason: to set up a new government of independents to prepare for national elections. He said he was ready to postpone forming a new government in the West Bank under current Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whose government resigned last month, if an agreement is reached on forming the proposed government.

Fayyad had actually proposed to Hamas last month to form a unity government to run the country and prepare for national elections; he said he was willing to travel to Gaza to discuss the matter with Hamas leaders. But they were quick to reject his initiative, accusing the Western-educated prime minister of being a U.S. puppet.

Abbas, meanwhile, reiterated that he is not interested in running for a second term.

Abbas was elected in March 2005, promising his constituency to bring them comprehensive peace through a negotiated settlement with Israel.  When that failed after Israel had refused to stop settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Abbas decided not to run again.

In January 2006, less than a year after Abbas was elected, legislative elections brought his rival, the Islamist Hamas movement, to power. Elections for president should have been held in March 2009 and for the legislative council in January 2010. But because of the June 2007 split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, when Hamas forces ousted Abbas’ army from the Gaza Strip, elections were suspended, and so was the parliament.

Since the split, Abbas and his Fatah group have been in a tug of war with Hamas. After waiting almost four years for the two sides to reunite, though, Palestinians have taken to the streets in a popular upheaval to force them to reconcile.

On Tuesday, thousands of Palestinians protested in the West Bank cities and Gaza Strip against the division. In Gaza, Hamas forces cracked down hard on the protesters, accusing them of being Fatah agents trying to destabilize its rule. The Palestinian Authority did the same n the West Bank, but to a lesser extent.

But apparently public pressure has made its mark on the leadership in Gaza and the West Bank, and the two sides are now talking about meeting to discuss reconciliation.

-- Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

 
Several hundred young Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza City on Monday, calling for reconciliation between Hamas, which is in control of the Gaza Strip and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, which controls the West Bank. The split came in 2007 after an attempt at a unity government fell apart.

The protest, organized by independent youths, started one day a head of a planned rally March 15 called by a number of youth groups on Facebook. Chanting slogans such as "The people want to end the division," protesters gathered at the Unknown Soldier Square, a few yards from the Hamas-dominated parliament. Organizers, who pitched tents and brought mattresses, said they would not leave the square until Fatah and Hamas reconciled.

"We are fed up with the split," said organizer Mohammed Antar, 22, as he waved the national flag. "Palestine is not owned by Fatah or Hamas. They should realize that they are harming the Palestinian cause with this division."

Organizers stressed that their movement is purely independent and nor directed aganist any party. "Every Palestinian has the right to join the demonstrations, but no factional flags will be raised but the national flag," said Antar.

"We don't belong to any parties. Parties have tried to put an end to the Hamas-Fatah conflict, but they have always failed. Today we will take the lead and our efforts will not go in vain," Mohammed Shiekh Yossif, another organizer said.

Demonstrations are expected to alslo take place Tuesday in the West Bank.

The sit-in was peaceful. Men and women chanted national songs and danced the traditional dabke. But dozens of Hamas secret police, both male and female, were among activists, monitoring activities. In the past, Hamas officials had tried to prevent demonstrations from taking place, but have backed this one.

Hamas officials visited the protest Monday night, saying they supported the popular movement. "We urge every Palestinian to participate in tomorrow's demonstrations," Hamas spokesman Sami abu Zuhri told reporters during his visit to the square late on Monday. "We need to be reunified to be able to defy the Zionist enemy."

One protester, who did not want to give his name, said he is a member of the Hamas military wing and also a policeman. "I will go out with my wife," he said. "We will only only hold Palestine flags."

Safa Awad, a university student who was holding a placard reading "Unity will save us," said "This is the first time I've demonstrated. Gaza's young people are waking up."

— Ahmed Aldabba in Gaza City.

Photo: Palestinian youths hold flags and posters during a rally in Gaza City calling for a reconciliation between the rival Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah. Credit: Hatem Moussa / Associated Press

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Thursday he has overhauled his Cabinet, replacing seven ministers and creating two new positions, including his government's first female minister, who will oversee a new ministry for women's affairs.

The move comes as rival Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank is also reshaping his Cabinet. Though Fayyad had expressed interest in including Hamas officials in his new government, so far there are no signs that Hamas will take part.

The two Palestinian factions split in 2007, with Hamas taking control of Gaza and the Fatah Party-dominated Palestinian Authority running the West Bank. Both reorganizations are seen as attempts by Palestinian leaders to respond to rising unrest in the Arab world by reforming their governments.

The Hamas reshuffling did not include participation from other Gaza factions or independents. All of the seven new ministers are either Hamas lawmakers or leaders. In December, Haniyeh made an offer to Gaza-based political factions to join his new government but none accepted.

In addition to being head of the government, Haniyeh is also the minister of finance, foreign affairs and education. Hamas officials described the shakeup as an “administrative change that aims to improve the performance of the Cabinet."

"This reshuffle will not harm the efforts to restore unity" with the Palestinian Authority, said Salah al-Bardwail, a Gaza-based Hamas leader.

During a government meeting Thursday, Haniyeh said his government would resign if a reconciliation deal between his movement and Fatah is achieved. Fatah officials in the West Bank rejected the reorganization, describing Hamas' government as illegitimate.

-- Ahmed Aldabba in Gaza City