Blockade of the Gaza Strip

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid is to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, as relations between the two countries thaw.

Lapid's office said he would travel to New York on Monday night, ahead of an address to the General Assembly on Thursday.

A source said the meeting with Erdogan would take place on Tuesday.

A Turkish warship docked in Israel over the weekend for the first time since 2010, amid improving ties between the two countries, officials and witnesses said on Sept. 4. 

The TCG Kemalreis frigate was docked Sunday in the northern port of Haifa, headquarters of the Israeli navy, AFP reporters said.

The U.N. Security Council on May 22 welcomed announcement of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and urged full adherence to the truce.

More than 52,000 Palestinians have been displaced by Israeli air strikes that have destroyed or badly damaged nearly 450 buildings in the Gaza Strip, the U.N. aid agency said on May 18.

It is a "blow on the freedom of the press," Turkey's communications director said on May 15 after Israeli strikes destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed the offices of various media groups.

Turkey has urged swift international action against Israeli attacks that killed and wounded scores of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and Jerusalem as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned of grave consequences should Israel's offensive endures.

A Turkish hospital in Gaza is supporting health authorities of the blockaded strip in stemming the coronavirus amid a surge in infections.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Marwan al-Hams, director of the Palestine-Turkey Friendship Hospital, said the hospital has admitted and treated some 3,500 coronavirus patients since April 2020.

An international trial on Israel's deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla will be held on May 1, the flotilla's legal commission said on April 26.       

The Gaza Strip's economy is in "free fall," a report from the World Bank warned on Sept. 25, calling for urgent action by Israel and the international community to avoid "immediate collapse."

Israel reimposed a blockade of fuel supplies to Gaza on Thursday in response to a resurgence of the flow of fire kites across the border, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.