Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was on Tuesday to fly to Washington where he would meet top U.S. officials, including new U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, his office said.

"He is due to fly on Tuesday afternoon for a three-day visit to the United States during which he will meet with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta," spokesman Barak Seri told Agence France Presse.

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.

When Sana, who comes from the West Bank city of Hebron, married her Jerusalem-born husband Mohammed 13 years ago, she never imagined their union would lead to a life of fear and hiding.

At first, their different residency permits -- hers for the West Bank, his for Jerusalem -- weren't much of an issue. She could live with her husband in Arab east Jerusalem with a temporary permit, and movement between the city and the West Bank was still fairly easy.

Israel is weighing the possibility of cancelling the landmark Oslo accords with the Palestinians in response to their plan to seek United Nations membership, the daily Haaretz said on Monday.

Citing unnamed Israeli officials, the newspaper reported that Yaakov Amidror, the head of Israel's National Security Council (NSC), was examining the potential cancellation as one of a number of responses to the U.N. bid.

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.

Israel is willing to hold peace talks with the Palestinians immediately, in Jerusalem or even Ramallah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in excerpts of an interview released on Wednesday.

Speaking to Arabic-language television station al-Arabiya, Netanyahu also denied that Israel wanted to see Syrian President Bashar Assad remain in power, and acknowledged that he had held secret peace talks with Damascus in the past.

Israel on Tuesday intercepted a French yacht heading for the Gaza Strip in defiance of its naval blockade, and began towing it to shore after what the military said was an uneventful takeover.

An army spokeswoman confirmed the interception of the MV Dignite/al-Karama had been conducted without violence and that the boat was being towed to the southern Israeli port of Ashdod.

Two Palestinian militants were injured early on Monday in an Israeli air strike on southern Gaza, medics said following days of unrest in the territory.

The Israeli army confirmed the strike, which was the fifth confirmed air raid on the enclave in six days.

Seven people were wounded in Gaza on Sunday by what Palestinian medical sources said was an Israeli air strike, but Israel denied it had carried out any such raid.

Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesman for the Hamas-run medical services in the Gaza Strip, said four children and three adults suffered moderate injuries in air strikes in the northern Beit Hanun area of the Gaza Strip.

Israel's defense establishment wants to see ties with Turkey repaired, even supporting an apology to Ankara for a bloody 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, Israel's Haaretz daily reported Sunday.

Relations between the former allies have been in tatters since the military operation, in which nine Turkish activists were killed when Israeli commandos raided a flotilla trying to breach a blockade on the Gaza Strip.