Israel granted final approval on Thursday to a plan to build 800 homes near Gilo in annexed east Jerusalem, with construction tenders likely to be published within a few months, a Peace Now official said.

The move will mean the westward expansion of Gilo, a settlement neighborhood located on the southern flanks of east Jerusalem, which lies very close to the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Hundreds of Hamas fighters kicked off celebrations in Gaza on Thursday to mark one year since Israel began freeing 1,027 prisoners in exchange for the release of one soldier.

In the first event of a day of celebrations, hundreds of armed and masked fighters from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement, marched through the city in a big show of force, an AFP correspondent said.

A sailing ship with pro-Palestinian activists that is planning to break an Israeli blockade of Gaza took on food and passengers off the southern Greek coast, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The Estelle, which first set off from Sweden and left Naples in Italy on October 6, stopped in international waters off the island of Crete Tuesday afternoon, where it loaded up with food and passengers.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has told the United States that he intends to resume peace talks with Israel if his bid to win U.N. non-member recognition for Palestine succeeds.

"President Mahmud Abbas sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday, in which he affirms the commitment of the Palestinian side to the two-state option," official Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Abbas political adviser Nimr Hammad as saying.

Palestinians briefly blocked a West Bank highway on Tuesday in protest at settler attacks and to demand its opening to local traffic, an AFP correspondent and the army said.

The correspondent said around 100 Palestinian demonstrators, along with Israeli and foreign activists, gathered on route 443 near Beit Ur village, five kilometres (three miles) west of Ramallah, blocking traffic on a key road linking Jerusalem with the coastal plain.

Two men were killed and another two critically wounded on Sunday in an Israeli strike on central Gaza, Palestinian medics said in what was the third deadly raid in 24 hours.

The incident occurred just east of Deir al-Balah, with the Israeli military confirming it had targeted "a terrorist rocket squad."

Dozens of olive trees were set ablaze in a Palestinian village early on Saturday, in an attack that villagers and Palestinian security officials blamed on Jewish settlers.

Residents of Qaryut village, 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of the West Bank city of Nablus, said that the fires had been set at several different spots simultaneously and security officials said the evidence pointed to an arson attack by residents of the neighboring settlement of Eli.

The Israeli air force launched attacks at three sites in the Gaza Strip on Saturday morning, the military said, hours after a rocket fired from the enclave exploded near a house in southern Israel.

A statement from the army said that its "aircraft targeted a terror activity site in the northern Gaza Strip, and two terror activity sites in the central Gaza Strip. Direct hits were confirmed."

Police said unknown assailants on Monday threw stones, bottles and garbage at the door of a church in Jerusalem, in the third attack against Christian sites in Israel in recent weeks.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse nobody was injured in the attack on the Romanian Orthodox church, St. George's, but that the door was damaged. Police were investigating, she added.

Israeli police entered the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday after being stoned by worshipers, following several days of clashes there, Israeli police and witnesses said.

"Several hundred worshippers threw stones at police who were stationed at the Mughrabi Gate, forcing them to go onto the plaza and push them towards the middle," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse.