Hundreds of activists are preparing to board aid ships bound for Gaza this week in defiance of an Israeli blockade and U.N. warnings and in spite of the violent end to an operation last year which left nine dead.

About 350 pro-Palestinian supporters hailing from 22 countries are set to join the "Freedom Flotilla" leaving from Greek ports.

Hundreds of Israelis gathered near the Gaza border on Saturday at the site where Palestinian militants seized Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in a deadly raid five years ago.

The protest was being held to mark five years that Shalit has been in captivity and comes amid mounting international calls for the Islamist Hamas movement to release him or at least provide proof of life.

Israel has approved the delivery to the Gaza Strip of materials to build 1,200 homes and 18 schools in U.N.-run projects, a defense official told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

The decision came shortly before the scheduled departure of an international convoy seeking to breach Israel's naval blockade of Gaza and as Israeli officials argued that there is no humanitarian crisis there.

Irish activists who plan to join an international aid flotilla to Gaza called Monday on the Irish government to urge Israel to allow the ships free passage to the Palestinian enclave.

About 25 passengers and crew will travel on the ship "Saoirse" (Gaelic for freedom) in the flotilla of about a dozen vessels involving activists from more than 20 countries, the Irish Ship to Gaza campaign (ISG) announced.

Israeli forces on Friday arrested a senior Hamas official in the northern West Bank, Palestinian security officials said.

Wasfi Qabha, 50, who had served as a minister for prisoner affairs in the Hamas government in 2006, was taken from his home in Jenin early on Friday morning the officials said.

The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was reopened on Wednesday, ending a four-day closure amid disagreements between Egyptian and Hamas officials.

In a statement, the Hamas manager of the border crossing, Ayub Abu Shaar, said the terminal was reopened "after an agreement with the Egyptian side that all the parties agreed to."

The parents of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Palestinian militants in Gaza in 2006, plan to file suit in a Paris court against his kidnapping and illegal confinement, his family told Agence France Presse.

The parents of Shalit, who has French citizenship, will file suit in Paris against his "kidnapping and illegal confinement", with the aggravating circumstances that he is "held hostage" and may have "suffered from acts of torture or of barbarism."

Egyptian officials at the Rafah border with the Gaza Strip closed the crossing on Saturday, Palestinian police told Agence France Presse.

Ayub Abu Shaa, head of the Hamas police unit at Rafah, said phone calls to the Egyptian side went unanswered and a crowd of hundreds of Palestinians seeking to cross to Egypt were faced with a locked gate.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met Pope Benedict XVI on Friday amid heightened tensions across the Middle East and Vatican concern about the treatment of Christian minorities in the region.

This is the fourth time Benedict meets Abbas since becoming pope in 2005.

Israeli troops arrested 12 suspected members of Islamic Jihad overnight near the northern West Bank town of Jenin, the army said on Tuesday.

Palestinian security forces confirmed the arrests, saying two of those detained were women.