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.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has no intention of leaving power or Libya, despite rebel claims they are expecting a proposal to end the conflict from Tripoli very soon, the government spokesman said on Sunday.

"Gadhafi is here. He is staying. He is leading the country. He will not leave. He will not step down because he does not have any official position," Moussa Ibrahim said when asked about rebel reports that they expect an offer from Gadhafi very soon.

A suicide bomber in a wheelchair attacked a police station north of Baghdad on Sunday, killing two people and wounding 17, nine of them policemen, officials said.

"A suicide bomber detonated his explosives vest at the entrance to a police station, killing two civilians and wounding 17 people, including nine policemen in Tarmiyah," a town north of Baghdad, an interior ministry official said. A defense ministry official confirmed the report.

NATO came under verbal fire again on Saturday from Moammar Gadhafi's regime, which accused it of killing 15 more people in strikes on civilian sites in the eastern city of Brega, a claim promptly denied by the alliance.

Meanwhile, three powerful explosions struck the eastern Tripoli suburb of Tajura, where a number of military installations are located, and columns of smoke could be seen from the center of the capital.

Former Egyptian trade and industry minister Rashid Mohammed Rashid was sentenced in absentia on Saturday to five years in prison for embezzlement of public funds, state news agency Mena reported.

Rashid, who is the subject of an international search warrant, was also ordered to pay a fine of more than nine million Egyptian pounds (over a million euros).

Egypt remanded an Israeli spy suspect in custody for 15 days on Saturday despite Israel's insistence he was innocent of espionage, judicial sources said.

Ilan Grapel, a U.S.-Israeli joint citizen who was arrested in a Cairo hotel on June 12, is to remain in detention for the "needs of the investigation," the two sources said.

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.

Syrian tanks on Saturday rolled into a village on the border with Turkey where workers are scrambling to erect a huge tent city for fear of a new exodus of refugees from the crackdown.

As families across Syria mourned 18 protesters gunned down by security forces on Friday, activists said troops backed by tanks rumbled into al-Najia village near Jisr al-Shughur, a town which the army seized on June 12 after repeated protests.

Iran protested to the United Nations on Friday over the latest sanctions imposed by the U.S. government, calling the measures "extremely dangerous" and aiming to harm civilians.

Iran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaei said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that "continuation of this awkward (U.S.) policy is extremely dangerous and will never serve to the maintenance of international peace and security."

Hundreds of supporters of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak clashed with his foes in central Cairo on Friday and dozens were injured, the official MENA news agency reported.

A small gathering of pro-Mubarak demonstrators swelled into an 800-strong protest by early evening to demand the immediate release of the former president who is in custody on charges of killing anti-regime protesters.