Some 120 foreign activists were being held in Israeli jails Saturday, awaiting possible deportation, after arriving at Tel Aviv's airport over the weekend as part of a solidarity mission with the Palestinians, a government official said.

Others who managed to get through Israeli border controls traveled to the West Bank where some joined a demonstration against Israel's separation barrier.

A U.S. vessel aiming to break Israel's naval blockade on Gaza sailed from Greece Friday but was promptly stopped by coastguards for defying a ban, an activist on board said.

The Audacity of Hope set sail for Gaza without warning, leaving behind nine other ships in a pro-Palestinian international flotilla.

Israel is "determined" to stop an activist flotilla that will try to reach the besieged Gaza Strip next week, the country's U.N. envoy said Thursday.

Setting off a new dispute with his Palestinian counterpart, ambassador Ron Prosor said: "Israel is determined to stop this flotilla. Israel has the right to self defense." He called the protest a "provocation."

Israeli troops on Wednesday began taking down barbed wire around the West Bank village of Bilin, focus of years of protests against Israel's controversial separation barrier, Agence France Presse reported.

Army bulldozers were seen razing a watchtower on a hill overlooking the village but the military declined to comment on the significance of the operation.

President Barack Obama warned Monday that new "tactical" disagreements loomed between Israel and Washington, but vowed to leverage his administration's "creative powers" in the cause of peace.

Obama, who has had a testy relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke at length on the stalled peace process at a fundraiser for his 2012 reelection campaign grouping Democratic friends of Israel.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Ankara Tuesday for talks with Turkish leaders amid disagreements over the formation of a Palestinian unity government, officials said.

Abbas will have a "private program" before talks with Turkish leaders on Thursday and Friday, a Turkish diplomat told Agence France Presse, without giving other details.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton held talks on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the international community seeks to relaunch peace talks.

Neither side issued a statement after the afternoon discussions, which came after Ashton met earlier in the week with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Palestinians will seek U.N. recognition and membership regardless of whether there is a resumption of peace talks, negotiator Mohammed Shtayeh said on Thursday.

His comments were made as the international community pushes a raft of new peace initiatives in a bid to head off the Palestinian push for U.N. membership.

Representatives of Palestinian rivals Fatah and Hamas will meet in Cairo on June 14 for new talks on the formation of an interim government, a Hamas official said Wednesday.

In a statement issued by Hamas, Ezzat al-Rasheq said the meeting would follow up on several issues under the terms of a reconciliation deal signed by the two groups last month.

The United States has had "no confirmation" that Pakistani al-Qaida commander Ilyas Kashmiri died in a drone strike last week, a U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said Monday.

A senior Pakistani security official said two days ago there were "strong indications" that Kashmiri -- who had a maximum US bounty of $5 million on his head -- had been killed in a U.S. drone strike last Friday.