The United States on Wednesday urged "all those wishing to deliver goods to do so through established channels so that their cargo can be inspected and transferred via land crossings into Gaza."

"As we continue to make clear to involved parties, mechanisms exist for the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Gaza," the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

Israel's deadly raid on an aid flotilla for Gaza was a tragedy that demands detailed investigation and must not be repeated, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Agence France Presse in an interview.

"What is especially tragic is that this act was carried out in neutral waters," the Russian prime minister said in a discussion late Monday in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi.

Israel on Wednesday was discussing the format of an investigation into its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted soldiers would be off-limits.

Israel was in talks with "several members of the international community" about the investigation, Netanyahu said, stressing that it should focus on "the pro-Palestinian activists who fought the naval commandos with knives and clubs."

President Barack Obama Wednesday pledged unwavering commitment to forge significant progress in the Middle East this year, despite the furor whipped up by Israel's raid on a Gaza aid flotilla.

Welcoming Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House, Obama promised the "full weight" of U.S. diplomacy on the latest crisis and to push Israelis and Palestinians out of a "dead end" and into direct peace talks.

Three policemen in western Iran have been killed by a roadside bomb detonated by Kurdish rebels, an Iranian state-owned newspaper said Thursday.

The report by the Iran daily said Gen. Faramarz Hosseinzadeh, the local chief of border police, and two other policemen were killed after members of the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PEJAK, detonated a roadside bomb near the town of Piranshahr, some 900 kilometers west of Tehran.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold talks with Barack Obama in Washington next week after White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel handed him a personal invitation from the U.S. president on Wednesday.

"On behalf of the president ... he has asked me to extend an invitation to you to come and visit him at the White House for a working meeting to discuss both our shared security interests as well as our close cooperation in seeking peace between Israel and its neighbors," Emanuel said after talks with the Israeli leader in Jerusalem.

Israel's navy will stop a flotilla heading for Gaza with 10,000 tons of supplies and pro-Palestinian activists intent on breaking a three-year blockade of Gaza, officials said Wednesday, in the first definitive Israeli pledge to stop the boats.

The officials said if the flotilla of eight ships does not turn back, the boats will be hauled to an Israeli port, the activists sent back to their countries and the supplies transferred to Gaza by land.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for Paris on Thursday on a trip that will also take him to Washington after he received a last-minute invitation for talks with U.S. President Barack Obama.

In Paris, Netanyahu will formally accept an invitation for Israel to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group of 30 developed world nations.

Speaker Nabih Berri snapped back at critics of the Hizbullah-Amal alliance who have accused "the Shiite couple" of launching war on families in last Sunday's municipal elections in the south and Nabatiyeh.

"Don't our candidates come from families?" Berri asked An Nahar newspaper.