Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to head to Beirut next week to meet with top Lebanese officials, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday.

“Abbas will visit Lebanon on Aug. 16 and 17,” Palestinian sources told the daily.

Fatah al-Islam has appointed Usama al-Shahabi as the new leader of the group after the death of its former leader Abdul Rahman Awad who was killed in an army ambush in Shtoura in 2010, revealed a Fatah source to the Central News Agency on Tuesday.

Confessions of two Fatah al-Islam members revealed that al-Shahabi was the mastermind of the failed assassination attempt against Fatah's Lebanon commander Mahmoud Issa, alias "Al-Lino", added the source.

Gaza's Hamas rulers on Tuesday executed two Palestinians convicted of collaboration with Israel, the interior ministry said in a statement.

It was the second time this year that the Islamist movement had carried out an execution of someone accused of 'collaborating' with the Israelis.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday it was "unthinkable" for Ankara to normalize relations with Israel until it apologized over its bloody raid on a Turkish ship heading for Gaza.

"As long as Israel does not apologies to Turkey, pay compensation to the families of the victims and lift its blockage on the Gaza strip, a normalization of relations is unthinkable," he said at the opening of a meeting of Palestinian ambassadors in Istanbul in the presence of President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday the Palestinians' bid to win U.N. backing for statehood was forced upon them by Israel's refusal to halt settlement building and end its occupation.

"We are going to the United Nations because we are forced to, it is not a unilateral action," he said in a speech in Arabic in Istanbul, where he is meeting Palestinian diplomats from around the world.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vowed Tuesday to take the Palestinian bid for statehood to the U.N. after the diplomatic Quartet failed to reach a breakthrough to revive peace talks.

"We will go to the United Nations and we hope the United States will not use its veto, but that we will go with its agreement," the Palestinian leader told reporters after a meeting with Greek President Karolos Papoulias.

The United States on Wednesday warned the Palestinians against seeking U.N. recognition of a future state not first defined in talks with Israel, as a top Palestinian official met with U.S. diplomats.

"We don't see a contradiction between the efforts being exerted to revive the peace process and our bid to go to the U.N.," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters after his talks at the U.S. State Department.

A unilateral Palestinian bid for statehood in September could lead to fresh conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and destabilize the whole region, a senior Israeli politician has warned.

In an interview with Agence France Presse, Shaul Mofaz, who heads the powerful parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said he would urge French leaders not to support the bid during a visit to Paris on Monday.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal held talks with Turkish officials on efforts to achieve Palestinian unity during a two-day visit to Istanbul ending later Wednesday, diplomats said.

Meshaal's talks in Turkey's largest city coincided with a four-day trip to the capital Ankara by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Fatah, at a time when Palestinian officials have reported disagreements between the two groups over the formation of a unity government.

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.