Gaza–Egypt border

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.

Turkey on April 16 called on Israel to cease its aggressive policies against Palestinians.

A statement by the Foreign Ministry said that such policies damage peace and stability in the region, adding: "It is worrying that Israel's policies of oppression and violence against the Palestinians escalated during Ramadan."

Israeli police on Jan. 17 detained five Finnish citizens, including a member of parliament, for allegedly attempting to cross the fence separating Israel and the blockaded Gaza Strip, according to local media.

Tens of thousands of Gazans gathered at the Israeli border on March 30 to mark a year since protests and clashes erupted there, testing a fragile truce only 10 days ahead of an Israeli general election.

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.

Israel further tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip on July 17, preventing fuel deliveries through its only goods crossing with the Palestinian enclave after scores of kites carried firebombs across the border to burn Israeli farmland.

At least 181 Palestinian journalists have been injured since March 30, when Gazans began staging almost-daily rallies along the Gaza-Israel security fence, the Journalists Support Committee (JSC) said on July 4.

Emergency medicine and medical equipment has been delivered to Palestinians at hospitals in the Gaza Strip, officials from the Turkish Red Crescent said on May 15.

Turkey on May 14 declared a three-day national mourning following the killings of at least 55 Palestinians with fire opened by the Israeli forces along the Gaza border and has recalled its ambassadors to the U.S. and Israel for consultations.

A French consulate worker faced charges yesteday of using an official car to smuggle dozens of guns from the Gaza Strip to the occupied West Bank in a case Israeli authorities called “very severe.”